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As they have for months now, hundreds of people rallied in downtown Ottawa Saturday to protest the Israeli invasion of Gaza and to demonstrate their support for the Palestinian people.
Marching through a steady spring drizzle, the demonstrators marched in a block-long column up Elgin Street and into the ByWard Market, before returning to rally in front of the Canadian Human Rights Monument.
Escorted by Ottawa police, the demonstrators paused at major intersections for several minutes at a time, briefly blocking traffic before moving along.
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Outside the Prime Minister’s Office, demonstrators let loose smoke canisters that filled the air with a red and green haze.
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Saturday’s crowd in Ottawa was loud and disruptive, but generally orderly as the marchers banged drums and waved dozens of the green, white, red and black Palestinian flags.
It was the first such demonstration since the Ottawa police hate and bias crime unit launched an investigation after complaints last weekend of hateful and antisemitic chants by some of the demonstrators that glorified the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people. “Our resistance attacks are proof that we are almost free,” a man can be heard saying in the video from the protest last weekend
“Oct. 7 is proof that we are almost free. Long live Oct. 7, long live the resistance, long live the intifada, long live every form of resistance.”
Threats of violence and other unlawful conduct are not protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which enshrines Canadians’ right to free assembly.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre have both condemned the glorification of the Oct. 7 attacks.
“There is a difference between peaceful protest and hateful intimidation,” Trudeau wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“It is unconscionable to glorify the antisemitic violence and murder perpetrated by Hamas on Oct. 7. This rhetoric has no place in Canada. None.”
With files from The Canadian Press
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