Deliveries spark hate-crimes investigation

BY ANDY BLATCHFORD

andy.blatchford@transcontinental.ca

Montreal police launched a hate-crimes investigation last week after notes featuring addresses to websites with anti-Semitic content were delivered door to door in West Island neighbourhoods.

Numerous residents reported receiving the small cards or slivers of paper in their mailboxes on Thursday evening, police say.

A Dorval woman — who did not want to give her name — said she was “very unnerved” after finding a card with addresses for seven websites, some that featured racist messages. “It’s a scary thing to think about. You know it’s always there, but until it’s in your face, you don’t think about it,” the woman said.

When police told her others had reported receiving similar notes she felt relieved. “I thought it was personal until I called the police,” she said. “It upset me. “I really do want to notify people so they don’t think, like me, that it’s personal.”

The woman discovered the note, which was taped to a brown piece of cardboard, last Friday morning. She said some of her Dorval neighbours also received the same message.

One neighbour told her a man in his early 20s was seen delivering the messages.

Station 5 police say the cards were also sent to residences in Pointe Claire.

Officers have also identified the suspect, but no charges have been laid, Const. Liliana Bellucci said. “The investigator’s looking to see if indeed it is hate,” said Bellucci, who would not say much about the case because of the ongoing investigation.

She said the distribution is only a crime if police determine there is direct assault on an individual or group. Otherwise, it falls in the category of freedom of speech, she added.

However, Bellucci said police can enforce a municipal bylaw that states the person needed a permit to make the deliveries. The suspect could receive a fine.

Police are taking the incident seriously and kicked off an investigation once the first report was filed. “If we take a report it’s because we take it seriously,” Bellucci said.

Meanwhile, Enza Martuccelli of the Canadian Jewish Congress was notified by a Pointe Claire resident who received a piece of paper at her Valois-area home. “We’ve never seen it in the West Island as long as I’ve been here and that’s three years,” Martuccelli said of the notes.

She called web-based anti-Semitic material an “increasing problem.”

Websites that feature hateful references can be identified to the CJC by sending an e-mail to stopinternethate@cjccc.ca. “It’s a good project on stopping Internet hate, where people can report such incidents,” Martuccelli said. “It falls in line with our mission to combat anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance.”

Meanwhile, Rabbi Mordecai Zeitz of Dollard des Ormeaux’s Congregation Beth Tikvah synagogue did not know about the notes. “Obviously anything that’s anti-Semitic, racist or against any group I’m repulsed by it, but I couldn’t really comment on this particular situation because I know nothing about it,” Zeitz said.