Civil rights advocates and Palestinian solidarity groups in Canada have raised alarm over a growing wave of municipal bylaws prohibiting protests outside houses of worship, schools, and other sites.
They say the measures — which have been passed in Canada’s largest city, Toronto, among other places, and are being considered elsewhere — infringe on freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly.
Activists have also warned that the bylaws are part of a wider push to stifle demonstrations against Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
“It’s clear that this isn’t a response to an overall concern around the management of protest,” said Tim McSorley, national coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, a coalition of dozens of civil society groups in Canada.
Instead, the bylaws are “a response to the overwhelming and unsubstantiated attacks on pro-Palestinian protests across the country,” McSorley told Truthout in an interview. “It’s based in anti-Palestinian racism and based in the characterization of those who would protest in favor of Palestinian human rights, against the ongoing genocide, as all being supporters of terrorism, which is clearly not the case.”
Hellbound and Down 