Greetings, my name is Jess McLean and you're listening to Blueprints of Disruption, a podcast
Speaker:that encourages folks to challenge the status quo, hold the powerful accountable, and of
Speaker:course disrupt. Our next guest spends most of his days doing exactly that. Eve Engler has
Speaker:been a staple in Canadian politics for years and has never really tread lightly. In the
Speaker:past 16 months, he's been best known for being one of the only journalists out there pressing
Speaker:leaders of all the parties about their positions on Palestine. And of course, you may have heard
Speaker:his name even more frequently in the past week or so, following his arrest by Montreal police.
Speaker:Eve isn't the first arrestee we've heard from here on Blueprints. Our regular listeners will
Speaker:recognize some of these tools of suppression. but there's also plenty that sets his arrest
Speaker:apart from the other activists we've interviewed. This was a brash move by Montreal police and
Speaker:by the Crown, who seemingly acted at the behest of one of the more vile social media personalities
Speaker:out there who's working alongside a conservative candidate. While Yves shares just how he coped
Speaker:with all the twists and turns in his case, he also of the systemic issues related to incarceration.
Speaker:This case also garnered a lot of attention globally. At the end of this episode is a folk song written
Speaker:about the occasion and that wasn't all. Between the thousands of letters and jail support and
Speaker:all the other forms of solidarity, Eve felt it and he shares how he thinks it impacted
Speaker:the outcome we were all hoping for. So sit back and soak up some of these shocking details
Speaker:of the latest case of Zionist lawfare being deployed against Palestinian solidarity work
Speaker:and failing epically. Welcome back. In case anybody doesn't know, can you please introduce
Speaker:yourself to the audience? Yeah, Yves Engler, Dujage Manchel based author, activist, been
Speaker:involved in mostly international solidarity kind of activism for, I guess, 25 years. Some
Speaker:student union politics, some anti-corporate globalization movement stuff back 20, 25 years
Speaker:ago, but mostly sort of Palestine, Haiti, anti-war kind of writing and activism. We've leaned
Speaker:on your writings and your work a few times for this show, so I'm guessing most of our audience
Speaker:has benefited from your writings before. Certainly the Canadian state has not. I imagine what
Speaker:you write about played a large part in what happened to you. In case you missed it, Eve
Speaker:spent five days in jail and why he was in there is open to interpretation. The police will
Speaker:likely tell you one thing, Eve will tell you another, and everyone else will have their
Speaker:own opinion. But Eve, what were you charged with? What did the police initially come to
Speaker:you and say you had done so wrong that they were going to haul you in? Yeah, the police
Speaker:called me Tuesday of last week, and the police inspector called me and said that they were
Speaker:going to be charging me. She asked me to come in the next day because they wanted to charge
Speaker:me with... harassing Dalia Kurtz, who is a well-known media, anti-Palestinian media personality.
Speaker:And the harassment was responding to her posts on X. And as I wrote about immediately, guilty
Speaker:as charged, I responded, I referred to as a fascist, genocide Dalia and other kind of snarky
Speaker:political responses. And I've never met her. I've never... emailed her, never messaged her,
Speaker:never talked to her. I don't even follow her on X. She could have blocked me. About seven
Speaker:months ago, she said, she made this declaration, quote tweeted me from a tweet five or six days
Speaker:earlier that I'd posted and said, stop harassing me, this is your last chance. You are harassing
Speaker:me, I am feeling threatened. She did this on X. And as someone posted right away saying,
Speaker:why don't you block him? That's... a mechanism on X. If you don't want him to respond to your
Speaker:messages, block him. She was obviously setting up the terrain for a legal or policing battle
Speaker:at that point. And we know that she did then go to the Montreal police. Then I publicized
Speaker:this. I wrote about it. I wrote an article for my site, posted it on different platforms.
Speaker:And there was an action alert. We shared it widely. Yeah, calling on the police. not to
Speaker:drop the charges. And thousands of people, by the next morning, thousands of people had emailed
Speaker:the police inspector. The police's response to my writing about it and this action alert
Speaker:being shared was to basically throw the book at me or double down. And now they said, I
Speaker:was harassing the police. And they brought in four different charges saying I was harassing
Speaker:the police. They come in the next day. to be arrested for harassing the police and for harassing
Speaker:Dalia, allegedly. The police in general or a specific officer? A specific officer that was
Speaker:the... Because we probably harass the police all the time, all of us do, and all of us make
Speaker:snarky comments to Zionists on the internet. I don't know how many people have called a
Speaker:fascist. I don't have your profile, but this is not unusual behavior. I mean... or criminal
Speaker:behaviour. It's not unusual behaviour and we now know that the police actually initially
Speaker:interviewed Dahlia in the summer and opened the file and looked, I guess, at my ex and
Speaker:whatever evidence she brought them and then closed the file. The Crown told us it's at
Speaker:a court and then there was pressure brought by Neil Obermann, a Conservative Party candidate
Speaker:here in Montreal, a lawyer, his law firm sent a letter. and then they reopened the file and
Speaker:then two months later I was charged. But the actual main thing here is, is that I didn't
Speaker:go to jail for anything to do with the charges against me. I went to jail because the crown
Speaker:or the police initially, and this right away, they were told, it was told to my lawyer on
Speaker:the Tuesday. The initial inspector said it would take 15 minutes. I would go to the station,
Speaker:when it was just a Daliakurtz charge, I'd go to the station. They would charge me, they
Speaker:would arrest me, presumably I would do my fingerprints, and they would let me go if I agreed to the
Speaker:conditions. They told my lawyer, she didn't tell me this initially, but she told my lawyer
Speaker:that when he called after, she called me, that the condition would be that I don't talk about
Speaker:Dahlia Kurtz. In effect, I don't talk about the case. I am, of course, was absolutely unwilling
Speaker:to agree to not talk about the case. And the condition could be for, you know, the Crown
Speaker:could drop the dropped the charges two weeks later, so the condition could have only been
Speaker:for two weeks, but it also most likely could have been for a year or however long until
Speaker:the whole case got dealt with. I guess it could even be two years. So I was absolutely unwilling
Speaker:to accept that condition. So effectively, I spent five days in jail because initially the
Speaker:police and then the
Speaker:And I should note that once we actually had the bail hearing late on the Monday, after
Speaker:presenting myself at the detention centre on the early Thursday, we didn't even actually
Speaker:have to present our defence. Because as the Crown was making the argument for this condition,
Speaker:the judge, in part, I think because there was so much solidarity, so much support in the
Speaker:courtroom, and more broadly, the judge basically got their head around what was actually being
Speaker:asked by the crown, which was to just completely muzzle me. So you could have a situation where
Speaker:this pro-genocide influencer is able to convince the police to abuse state authority on behalf
Speaker:of Israel's genocide, and then the person who's being targeted is not even able to respond
Speaker:publicly to this. So it was very obviously... the you know an infringement on free speech
Speaker:but an infringement on free speech in service of genocide. And so the judge basically forced
Speaker:the crown attorney to concede to what I had agreed to immediately. I was willing to say
Speaker:right away on the Tuesday that I would not respond to Dahlia Kurtz on social media anymore. Effectively
Speaker:what I did was I just blocked her myself. Something she could have done seven months ago. I blocked
Speaker:her myself. So now she won't appear in my feed. Well, she could. The way X is designed, there's
Speaker:folks that still end up on my feed, even though I've blocked them. So there's just, you wouldn't
Speaker:go after her directly. Exactly. So I was willing to do that right away. And the police and the
Speaker:crown, they abuse their power. Obviously, it's also a big, it's really costly to put someone
Speaker:in jail. You have to be careful. from a sample of public resources that whatever thousands
Speaker:of dollars that were spent on this would have been much better used for all kinds of lots
Speaker:of people who could use a place to stay in the cold and there's lots of people who could use
Speaker:counseling and all kinds of other more socially useful things. But basically the police, I
Speaker:don't think, I think obviously Dalia Kurtz and Neil Obermann did all this because they saw
Speaker:me as a threat to... you know, Canadian complicity in genocide. I don't actually think the police
Speaker:initially were doing this with what we call sort of a broader political intent. I think
Speaker:actually, funnily, the inspector was maybe just kind of like, oh, I got pressured from this
Speaker:like law firm that's this conservative party candidate. I'm just kind of like move this
Speaker:file along, you know, the crown might drop it or just kind of, I don't. So that's, I think,
Speaker:more likely of their initial reaction. But then the police's reaction to me writing about it,
Speaker:now that's a whole other thing. Then it was basically there, we're asserting our authority.
Speaker:How dare you challenge our authority? And the other part, and I don't think that they would
Speaker:have been able to, they wouldn't have brought four charges unless the hierarchy of the policing
Speaker:structure. wanted to, oh, okay, now we have an opportunity to make Engler's life difficult,
Speaker:or he's been annoying, or how exactly they formulate that themselves. And so then that becomes the
Speaker:institution of the SPVM, Montreal police, taking a very clear political act. But I don't know
Speaker:this, but I don't actually think the first phase is as much of that, like, we want to get Eve
Speaker:as it is just kind of a connection to Zionist lobbying and just kind of like, oh, we'll just
Speaker:move this along and that, but I don't know. But it's like, it's you, Eve. It's like, who
Speaker:thought that they could make you stay quiet? So they had to know whatever they did to you
Speaker:would get amplified, whether you did it or somebody else did it. It was just like, there was no
Speaker:way they were just going to be able to like, oh, this will just shut the law firm up. It
Speaker:was going to create a problem for them. And just from reporting what's happening to Palestinian
Speaker:solidarity activists here in mostly Toronto but Ontario and the way that there is the hate
Speaker:crimes working group within the attorney general's office that coordinates with the hate crimes
Speaker:police forces and things like Project Resolute and they're actually coordinating with each
Speaker:other to torment activists Right, with the same bullshit, not the same charges, cause this
Speaker:is just next level, I think, the ridiculousness of both sets of charges, but just the idea
Speaker:of laying charges with no real concern on whether there'll be a conviction or not, because, you
Speaker:know, your name gets smeared and you know, you end up with bail conditions that make your
Speaker:life miserable. Their goal is often to then nail you on breach. Right? Like, go ahead,
Speaker:agree to not write about this, but I know you're going to. I know you're going to slip up. You're
Speaker:going to say something in an interview that's going to get you, and we will get you on breach,
Speaker:and then we'll really be able to lock you down. These are tactics that have been deployed on
Speaker:Palestinian solidarity activists in Canada, in Ontario, for like a year now. So the methodology,
Speaker:like, doesn't surprise me at all, but I think there is always a broader... political because
Speaker:they had to have known it would have brought up the political, right? That it wasn't just
Speaker:going to be another charge on the sheet that day, that this guy was going to make noise
Speaker:about it, right? And we know so because that's why we're trying to ask him for these bail
Speaker:conditions. And one of the advice we give our audiences is to do what you did is to hold
Speaker:on as long as possible to get some of these ridiculous bail conditions in front of— justice
Speaker:of the peace or a judge or somebody at least get it on record. And often some of them are
Speaker:seen as what for what they are and they don't become a problem. But five days that's quite
Speaker:a bit to stay in there. We very much appreciate you doing that. I can understand from a personal
Speaker:level and a values based level why you wouldn't want to sign on to those conditions. But you
Speaker:also realize by not signing those and making this stand that was for the entire movement,
Speaker:particularly in Canada, right, and sending a message not just to authorities, that shit
Speaker:wouldn't be taken lightly, but to all the other activists out there, right? And if you can
Speaker:hold on, if you can challenge these bail conditions, it's worth it in the end, because they're very
Speaker:suppressive. We've had folks in Ottawa. At least five of them, it sounds like, had numerous
Speaker:charges and awful bail conditions that essentially just took them right out of the movement. They
Speaker:can't contact one another, they can't attend Palestinian protests is a common condition
Speaker:put on folks. So, we're very much appreciative. It didn't take you out of the fight and you
Speaker:were able to fight those conditions, but it kind of set a precedent for folks and an example
Speaker:to follow. Did you feel that pressure as well? You have a family, you want to get home to
Speaker:them. Five days is a long time to sit and stew and be away from your littles and your loved
Speaker:ones. But there's bigger game at play, isn't there here? Yeah, there's definitely a big
Speaker:game. I obviously understood the conditions fight as a broader fight. I have to say, and
Speaker:I've know many of the examples you're talking about Ottawa, I heard stories about Toronto
Speaker:and stuff like that. I didn't understand this conditions question of like the no talking
Speaker:about it. as becoming basically the standard that the Crown here was pursuing. That's, I've
Speaker:only learned about that as part of dealing with this. And I had like lawyer send a judgment
Speaker:that basically made it really clear this was unconstitutional. A previous judgment? A previous
Speaker:judgment. So we used that. Because going public, then people heard about this and then were
Speaker:able to assist my lawyer in responding to this condition. So I was very, you know, obviously
Speaker:happy that that, you know, kind of, I've been able to, you know, this condition is now put
Speaker:under much more public attention and it's going to be harder for the Crown to pursue it. I
Speaker:have to say my initial reaction when I got the phone call from the police officer and the
Speaker:first thing is my initial reaction was to like... argue, which is probably not, legally speaking,
Speaker:not the right thing to do. It's probably your best thing is just to listen to them. Shut
Speaker:the fuck up, right? That's the advice. Shut the fuck up. Right. My personal political inclination
Speaker:was to be outraged at like, what are you like, are you kidding me? You're going to like this,
Speaker:this like genocidal like maniac is coming to like, stop me from being able to respond to
Speaker:her open racism. And you know, she, Delia Kurtz is like promoting these neo-Nazis calling for
Speaker:mass deportation, right? She's like, Totally, she's not in this sort of like, I don't know,
Speaker:the hard Zionist mainstream. She's off into like a different territory of kind of far right
Speaker:kind of politics. But anyways, so that was, but my actual initial concern condition wise
Speaker:was a condition of keeping the peace. They were gonna bring that. And my reasoning for that
Speaker:of course, is because I go to lots of press conferences where sometimes you have to get.
Speaker:You have to get in. That's why I'm laughing. You could not keep the peace. Yeah, you have
Speaker:to get in ways that you, that the police, if the police know I have that condition, that
Speaker:they can be like, ah, Eve. That's such a broad interpretation too of disrupting the peace,
Speaker:right? Like that's, that could be anything. That could be a dog squeak toy. Exactly, so
Speaker:in that, and I'm saying, you know, my lawyer was kind of like, well, that's a standard condition.
Speaker:You don't want to get into a fight on that. That's pretty standard. So he was actually,
Speaker:his initial reaction was kind of like, man, don't fight that too much. Now, of course,
Speaker:when he heard the condition of the silence, then he immediately counseled me. I was already
Speaker:clearly not going to do that, but he immediately counseled not to do that. But so that was actually
Speaker:my initial condition, concern. But yeah, I mean, clearly there's this need for public campaigning,
Speaker:public pressure, obviously a legal side to it as well, of just being, you know, challenging
Speaker:the whole kind of architecture of police and Crown using their leverage in moments of vulnerability.
Speaker:with people and imposing different conditions that obviously have massive political implications.
Speaker:So yeah, it's good that this may undermine that. I hope obviously this undermines that. And
Speaker:also there's obviously the more specific side to the kind of Zionist lawfare element to
Speaker:you know, kind of worked on as well. I'm writing that down. A Zionist lawfare. That's a new
Speaker:term for me. I know exactly what it means, but we've seen a lot of that, right? Where charges
Speaker:that would never have been levied and a lot of disrupting charges and mischief charges
Speaker:for simply standing in the street, like things that will never end up in, for sure, jail time,
Speaker:let alone a conviction. And you mentioned, you know, maybe a couple of weeks. But we've got
Speaker:plenty of examples where these conditions plague people for a year or more. And many, many are
Speaker:getting picked up on breach because of the way they can be interpreted. So yeah, movement
Speaker:lawyers are working on it, but it's hard to keep in front of them because the way the Crown
Speaker:and the police are operating is like ever-changing, ever-escalating, it seems like. I think to
Speaker:take a journalist... I was going to say off the streets, but they politely called you in,
Speaker:which is a tactic that they use, right? It's they'll kind of haunt you with phone calls
Speaker:first to try to get you to come in, but so that you don't get picked up where you don't want
Speaker:to get picked up, you know, in front of your family, maybe in front of your employer. But
Speaker:five days you spent in there, I see people commenting when you were released, I can't remember who,
Speaker:whether it was maybe Alex Terrell that mentioned it, but that you had pages and pages of handwritten
Speaker:articles. What were you writing about while you were in there? Where was your mind at?
Speaker:Well, I got really lucky. On the Thursday night when we got brought to the prison, to Bordeaux
Speaker:prison, there happened to be one of those really small pencils sitting on a table with a couple
Speaker:of these forms that you're supposed to fill in if you want to have some request for the
Speaker:prison authorities. And the moment I didn't realize how lucky I'd gotten. in getting the
Speaker:pencil, but I basically, I then had a pencil, which I should say the, one of the other prisoners
Speaker:who kind of like ran the area I was in, ran in quotations, tried to get it from me at one
Speaker:point, I pushed back and a guard tried to, sort of tried to get it from me at one point, I
Speaker:pushed back on that as well. And basically, so I then had a pencil, which, which it was
Speaker:difficult to get paper, I had to rip up this big brown bag that they gave us to keep our
Speaker:stuff in. And, but, but yeah, I was able to write. And so I wrote about, I wrote about
Speaker:some of the stuff, you know, the experience I haven't published most of it. I haven't published
Speaker:yet, uh, cause I've been so busy, but, um, I wrote about, I was, you know, things, even
Speaker:things like a, some, just about a general letter about Trump, Canada, foreign policy kind of
Speaker:thing, a couple of letters about a couple of articles about elements, like there's a history
Speaker:here. I just submitted one of them. Uh, the, the CESAS has been targeting. Palestine solidarity
Speaker:for decades, right? There's books, I talk about in my Canada and Israel book, where like the
Speaker:communication security establishment, the Canada's version of NSA, had like PLO and Arafat as
Speaker:part of their names, this is going back to like the 70s, where they were signals intelligence.
Speaker:And as then, you know, so they've been compiling, you know, information on Palestine related
Speaker:and passing that to Mossad. There's a whole history of Mossad using Canadian passports
Speaker:in their assassinations in the early 70s and in the most infamously in Jordan against Machal,
Speaker:the head of Hamas's political bureau at that point, they poisoned him and then the Israeli
Speaker:agents got caught and they had to give the antidote and they were using Canadian passports and
Speaker:it became a bit of a diplomatic scandal. So there's a, I'm kind of fitting the recent targeting
Speaker:of... myself specifically, but then over the past 16 months into a longer history of the
Speaker:Canadian security intelligence agencies targeting of Palestine activism. And obviously that's
Speaker:one of Canada's contributions to Zionism or Palestinian dispossession, that element of
Speaker:the relationship. So stuff like that and some stuff about just kind of the... framing, like
Speaker:my initial tweets and messaging about the framing of the victory, of victory for free speech
Speaker:and stuff like that. Yeah, and I think I ended up writing seven articles or something like
Speaker:that. It was also like, you know, I didn't know if I would be able to get them out. I wasn't
Speaker:actually sure. I told the prison guard when I was, that these were like part of my defense,
Speaker:and he was actually quite skeptical. So he was, I was able to keep the articles. He put it
Speaker:in an envelope, so I thought it was a chance that I would just lose all my work. But it
Speaker:was also, I think, you know, it was healthy also to just sort of to do something. And that's
Speaker:one of the things to see in jail, how much... There's a lot of distress, like this is kind
Speaker:of remarkable how much distress people were under. And honestly, the kind of reaction to
Speaker:the situation, I don't think was very healthy. Like a lot of people were just like... stay
Speaker:in bed all day. And I tried to follow very clear, wake up in the morning, go to bed at 10 o'clock,
Speaker:whatever, right? And to sort of, obviously the writing helped in kind of stabilizing things
Speaker:for me and making the time kind of more pleasant and less difficult. But yeah, so it was a mix
Speaker:of that. And then obviously put a lot of political things that I want to write about and have
Speaker:come out. some incredible showing of solidarity for your case. I don't know, I imagine you've
Speaker:seen it now, the video from Roger Waters, you even mentioned it in your thank you letter
Speaker:on your website, a folk song written about you or about your case. And you know thousands
Speaker:of letters, the tweets, the uproar, were you feeling any of that on the inside? How did
Speaker:you feel support in there? Or were you just hoping it was all happening? I was, I was hoping
Speaker:it was happening. And, and, you know, probably my, what am I, what am I kind of the lowest
Speaker:moment in the jail was, was basically that feeling like there was a whole bunch of things that
Speaker:I should have done before coming in to facilitate more kind of like campaigning and that there
Speaker:was like, sort of like some communication things with regards to my phone. I should have given
Speaker:it to somebody like give it to my dad. I should have given it to Alex Treelish. few communication
Speaker:things I should have, things that got going to, to help kind of like engender more, uh,
Speaker:kind of uproar. They did a good job without it, didn't they? People did a great job without
Speaker:it. I saw it obviously on Friday, um, at the court, I'm on video from the prison. You could
Speaker:see people in the courtroom. So I knew that right, right there. Now that obviously, um,
Speaker:that, that was, um, it lifted my spirits. I didn't see it on the Monday morning. I was
Speaker:told that like a hundred, a hundred plus people showed up on the Monday morning, but it was,
Speaker:it was very concrete in its, well, I can't prove this, but very likely it helped for two different
Speaker:ways in the, in the, how the judge dealt with it because they didn't send me on the Monday,
Speaker:despite myself going to the prison guards at seven 30 morning and saying like, why haven't
Speaker:I been sent to the, the courthouse? which is downtown, the prison's about 45 minutes away,
Speaker:why haven't I been sent downtown when my court's happening today? And they said, no, it's tomorrow.
Speaker:And so apparently there was some sort of error in the date sent. I don't know if this error
Speaker:was, you know, it actually was an error, how the whole process played out. I'm told it really
Speaker:was on the side of the court clerk. They didn't write, they wrote the wrong day. If that happened
Speaker:in my case, it probably happens Fairly often then. It does to Palestinian solidarity activists.
Speaker:Yeah. Okay, well, so if you have other examples of that, yeah. We do, yeah. Yeah. But what
Speaker:the turnout did is that basically the judge called, I don't know if it was actually the
Speaker:judge or their assistant, but the judge pressed to call the prison. And so suddenly at 11 o'clock,
Speaker:so after it's 7.30 in the morning, just after that I'm told, like, no, it's tomorrow. And
Speaker:I'm kind of confused and I'm like... Initially, you're kind of like, oh, are they going to
Speaker:try to keep me in here forever? And then after a few minutes of thinking that, I just go,
Speaker:OK, well, I got 24 more hours. Just go back to my routine and sit down and start writing.
Speaker:And then suddenly at 11 o'clock, all of a sudden, it's like emergency. The prison guards come
Speaker:in. Engler, get all your stuff. Like, get your underwear on. I got to go, go. And so basically,
Speaker:the judge had either directly or with their assistant said, what's going on here? He has
Speaker:to be in court today. And I'm pretty confident that if there's no one in the room. the judge
Speaker:does not take the time to press that to get down. And then, and so I think that was a very,
Speaker:like that solidarity was very concrete and helping get out, at least helping get out 24 hours
Speaker:earlier. But then the bigger thing I think was that the presence led to the judge taking the
Speaker:time to think about what was actually being asked with this condition, right? That this
Speaker:wasn't just like. oh, okay, this is just a pro forma condition. Yeah, he's accused of harassing
Speaker:somebody. And so, yeah, we just don't want him to talk because that could be viewed as harassment
Speaker:and just move it along. And so then I think that the presence in the room and the judge
Speaker:was very clear about it. And then all the prison guards, you know, I got mentioned repeatedly
Speaker:by different prison guards that there's all these people waiting for you outside, there's
Speaker:all the people in the room and people talked about the cheering. Somebody, a prison guard,
Speaker:who was like, like across the way said, are you the person who that all that cheering wasn't
Speaker:from? I heard it in my courtroom, like, you know, one over or two over, right? So I didn't
Speaker:hear the initial, because they put you back into this like detention area and stuff like
Speaker:that. So clearly the whole, you know, a big chunk of the structure of the courthouse kind
Speaker:of, you know, became aware of all this. And so I think that they, you know, they treated
Speaker:me better. the guards who often can treat you very unkindly. They treated me better in response
Speaker:to that in part. So yeah, so the solidarity was, I think had a clear judicial benefit.
Speaker:And obviously then it's the bigger picture as well in that this is about, it's about sending
Speaker:the message to the authorities that if you pursue this type of thing elsewhere, in other instances,
Speaker:we're gonna try to make a big kerfuffle about it and make your life difficult in trying to
Speaker:do that. So all the campaigning and stuff is not just narrowly about this case, but about
Speaker:possible other cases, and cases that have already happened for that matter, and trying to push
Speaker:back against some of this you know, legal and policing abuse. We saw your partner and your
Speaker:father speak to the media. This wasn't the first time for your father. He explained like he
Speaker:was a journalist as well when he introduced himself there. But that's a lot of pressure
Speaker:that goes on them quite quickly, maybe unexpectedly. Did they feel the support as well? Yeah, I
Speaker:think they did. The issue with my partner and my youngest, my almost three-year-old, too,
Speaker:they actually were flying back from Uganda on Friday morning. So I hadn't actually been there
Speaker:for two months. So I hadn't seen my daughter in two months. My son came back five weeks
Speaker:ago because he had school and came back and stuff. So it was an added dimension of, I mean,
Speaker:there was a personal element to me to see them immediately after a long period. And also there
Speaker:was this sort of added burden on, I mean, two year old doesn't really process that, but of
Speaker:course Bianca, the burden on her. And so yeah, so there was this added burden. My dad was
Speaker:kind of like involved from right away and he's retired and there's a greater flexibility of
Speaker:time. And he was involved in the coordination with my lawyer and Alex Turrell and others
Speaker:who were organizing pushback. But yeah, it was a burden on them. You know, there's no doubt
Speaker:about that. It's, you know, it's stressful too for, I wasn't traumatized by being in jail
Speaker:in any way. I, there were moments that were not pleasant, obviously lots of boredom, but
Speaker:I, honestly, I would say I had as many fun moments as I did. like bad moments, right? So I, but
Speaker:I did think to myself, obviously repeatedly, one of the kind of bad moments is like, how
Speaker:are others processing me being in here, right? Like that's hard on Bianca to be like, doesn't
Speaker:really know, you don't know the condition. I wasn't able to talk to her, I wasn't able to
Speaker:talk to my lawyer the whole time. It's crazy. I'm not friend, total violation of rights.
Speaker:I think that people who know me, know, knew that it wasn't, it was unlikely to be too hard.
Speaker:And we saw the video of you going in. You seemed pretty stoic and resolved. Like, did you not
Speaker:have a moment though, where you just like, did you lose it for a minute? Like big, let out
Speaker:massive F bombs? Did you think it was a prank at any point? Well, on the Friday when I was
Speaker:told I was going back until Monday, which was now the second video hearing I'd had. So again,
Speaker:the cops could have just given conditions right away, could have been 15 minutes out the door.
Speaker:Then I have a video hearing on the Thursday, about four or five hours later. They, the Crown
Speaker:says, no, we object to his liberation. So they could have, they could have said, okay, yeah,
Speaker:you can go there. Then I have another video hearing on the Friday. At this point, I think
Speaker:it's gonna be my bail hearing, right? Though they wouldn't let me talk to my lawyer, so
Speaker:I wasn't prepared to defend. So at that point after that, and now they're just gonna push
Speaker:it off to Monday and nothing's actually happened. So at that point I did, I was like, you know,
Speaker:oh God. it's going to be 72 hours more and who knows if they're just going to try to figure
Speaker:something off to push it off. And in fact, we now sort of know that it almost did get pushed
Speaker:off another day because of either bureaucratic error or whatever. So there was a moment there
Speaker:where I was wondering, is this worth it? And also, I should also point out that I didn't
Speaker:know I was going to win on the condition. So it's like, I was willing to like... And I asked
Speaker:my lawyer this, I was like, you know, if you're telling me I have to be in a for a week to
Speaker:win on the condition, then I'm fine with the week. But if you're telling me I'm going, I'm
Speaker:staying here for another three days. For nothing. Yeah, for 10% chance on the condition, then
Speaker:I have to think that through about, you know, in terms of, right? So, so there are questions
Speaker:like that, where I got kind of, you know, like sort of down. And yeah, so I had some moments
Speaker:after the video hearing on the Friday where I was just like, questioning my decisions and
Speaker:questioning, and I also thought to myself, was there sort of like a trap that I kind of fell
Speaker:into that these pro-Israel types sort of were trying to get me to act in certain ways in
Speaker:response to this kind of legal thing? You ask yourself these questions of, was it the right,
Speaker:because I should tell you right away. I was told not to go public. My lawyer... Had he
Speaker:not known you very long or what? When I wrote the article in response to the initial charge
Speaker:of medallion, he was basically like, don't do it, don't go public. And my inclination was
Speaker:like, this is a race, I'm up for the fight, I think I'm right in the narrow, okay, on the
Speaker:legal condition question. But that's a small part of the right question. And I think on
Speaker:the broad question of Israel's genocide, You know, I think that we are so clearly right
Speaker:that it's, you know, like the fight is necessary and essential. But so, yeah, so you know, you
Speaker:doubt yourself a little bit that was, you know, difficult. And also, you know, the Friday morning,
Speaker:I was like disappointed, didn't get to see them coming back. They were coming back early in
Speaker:the morning from Uganda and like disappointed that. And Bianca's good friend died three months
Speaker:ago really terrible situation and there was a memorial on Saturday. So it was a bit difficult
Speaker:to not go to that. And yeah, so there were some things like that. But anyways, it was for the
Speaker:most part, it was not, you know, it wasn't traumatic for me. I mean, it still enrages us. It's so
Speaker:glad to hear that it didn't. But it was enraging for folks who had seen arrest after arrest.
Speaker:It wasn't surprising to see You know, hear people getting hauled away, but this just hit a little
Speaker:bit differently. And I don't think we often like single out cases of police suppression
Speaker:like the way that we did. But coming at a journalist just seemed like a ratchet up. We're very much
Speaker:grateful. Very much grateful that it ended up pretty good for you. But Can you tell us a
Speaker:little bit more about being denied your lawyer? Because one of the pieces of advice that we
Speaker:give folks on the show, you know, we've had movement lawyers on as well, on top of shut
Speaker:the fuck up being the number one piece of advice that... But silence is like deadly to activists
Speaker:and Eve being a journalist activist is... And I'm speaking to the audience here a little
Speaker:bit, like you could hear how he needed to keep that pencil and had to write. You know, like
Speaker:these conditions wouldn't just be, oh, tying my hands on talking about my case. Asking activists
Speaker:to stop pursuing Zionists and trying to end the genocide, that's just not, it's not an
Speaker:option, right? It's not an option. We've talked to people who've been arrested and, you know,
Speaker:they've not gone through what Eva's gone through, I think, in terms of like five days waiting
Speaker:for bail, but just. being in these predicaments and it being very stressful, but also trying
Speaker:to remember what Palestinian prisoners go through as a means to like, if they can do that, I
Speaker:can do this. Right? If there's thousands of them detained without charge in Israeli Zionist
Speaker:prisons, we just saw 600 hostages released just the other day. So I think that helps you put
Speaker:it into perspective, I kind of deterred from my question there. You weren't given a lawyer
Speaker:even, and correct me if I'm wrong, even though a judge at some point admonished that process
Speaker:and said you were due a lawyer and to remedy that, what was happening there? Because yeah,
Speaker:like the other piece of advice we give people is ask for a lawyer right away. Don't say anything
Speaker:to the police. Make it clear you want legal representation and don't sign those bail conditions
Speaker:until you hear from someone. That wasn't easy for you. No, it wasn't easy. First of all,
Speaker:there's no doubt. I thought about Palestinian prisoners a lot. The situation of difficulty
Speaker:is, I mean, it's just in the dungeons, the lack of any rights for Palestinian prisoners is
Speaker:like the scope at which this is so much. And the whole concept of steadfastness, I tried
Speaker:to, in the moments when I did, you know, find difficulty, I basically kind of admonish myself
Speaker:for being like, come on, are you kidding me? Like, people who have been 20 years in these
Speaker:Israeli dungeons and there's this like, which which, you know, is I think, you know, for
Speaker:me, at least that was a very good way to sort of bring myself back to reality and in a, you
Speaker:know, and sort of context of difficulty. And I think that That is important at a big picture
Speaker:level of, I've always kind of argued it in a, you know, I've said this around like Haiti
Speaker:stuff and like so much of Haitian affairs, the difficulty of Haitians can be resolved in Ottawa
Speaker:or Montreal or New York or Washington DC by campaigning. And it's like, the amount of work
Speaker:that we need to do and the amount of... I guess in the call of pain that we would need to,
Speaker:um, suffer, uh, to lessen that pain and suffering in Haiti. And then it holds slightly different
Speaker:dynamics, but holds to a large extent with, uh, Palestinians, the amount of pain we would
Speaker:have suffered to change the political dynamics, to lessen the pain there is not that much,
Speaker:right? Like that pain is so much less. And so, and so, you know, obviously should be, uh,
Speaker:everyone's in different personal situations and whatever, but it should be, we should push
Speaker:that to the extent we can. Now with regards to the guards, or the guards and the phone
Speaker:and the lawyer, it was pretty stunning. Nothing, no phone, no talking to my lawyer the whole
Speaker:time. What do you mean the whole time? Like until you were brought to the court? Until
Speaker:the court, yeah. Until, so- How did you even know you secured, cause you secured a lawyer
Speaker:before you went in? Yes, yeah. Okay. So- lawyer was all he didn't he had something that on
Speaker:the Thursday morning so he couldn't accompany us down to the detention center, but he was
Speaker:you know aware that was all happening it was and after the video court on the Thursday Something
Speaker:around three around three o'clock. They asked for I asked the police officer lawyer To talk
Speaker:to lawyer and they said you'll be able to talk to lawyer when you get to the prison and didn't
Speaker:get to the prison until about 9 p.m. and I asked nothing, no. And then on the Friday morning,
Speaker:they took me down to a video hearing at the prison and my lawyer had to stop, even though
Speaker:there was 20, 30 people in the room, the room was like full, they had to stop the discussion
Speaker:because I hadn't had a chance to talk to my lawyer and to then go off into a different
Speaker:room to talk to my lawyer. But that also, that... it impacted the whole kind of how the process
Speaker:played out. It disadvantaged me effectively. Beyond the fact that if you discuss and you
Speaker:can plan in advance and think about and all that stuff, but even in the narrow of actually
Speaker:how the process was playing itself out, it disadvantaged me. And then, so then my lawyer on the Friday
Speaker:said, we haven't got to talk to him, we need to prepare a defense and ask the judge to mandate
Speaker:the prison to enable us to... discuss over the weekend and they just ignored it. What? But
Speaker:I don't know if it was even sent to the prison, but in this case, again, I don't think this
Speaker:was actually, it wasn't politically targeted. It wasn't targeted at me in that sense. It
Speaker:was politically targeted in a broad sense in that they just, they do that with everyone.
Speaker:All the prisoners were like, they don't, it's just the bare minimum. Like in our, apparently
Speaker:in our cell, there were phones. They were like private, they were, you know, whatever, bell
Speaker:phones, the private phones, I guess, and they had been broken. Apparently they'd been broken
Speaker:recently, I don't know, there are two of them. So they're, what were being told to me, I don't
Speaker:know if it's true or not, that, you know, a few weeks ago, if someone in my situation would
Speaker:have had access to these phones, and I guess at some point been able to call their lawyer.
Speaker:I don't know if that's true or not, I don't know if they were trying to fix the phones
Speaker:or not, or. On the Monday, once the error of me being in court got onto the radar, they
Speaker:brought a phone for me to try my lawyer. I wasn't able to get through to him. So obviously they
Speaker:have the technology to offer phone calls to... Yeah, we have a thing called cell phones. They
Speaker:exist. They can move from room to room. They had those old school... We put them on the
Speaker:thing, but you can move a hundred feet away or whatever from the phone. Oh, the cordless.
Speaker:A cordless, yeah. So I hadn't seen one of those in a while. So they obviously could if they
Speaker:cared, but that was just abundantly clear in all of the treatment is that the guards are,
Speaker:like there is a clear dehumanization. I think the guards themselves get dehumanized in the
Speaker:process, but it's mostly of course against the prisoners. That it's just like, they're trying
Speaker:to do the bare minimum. of stuff. So they do will they bring the food, they'll but they
Speaker:but it's like, they don't want to fulfill any request like they you know, there's a whole
Speaker:form, you know, fill out a form about you talking a lawyer. I did that on the Sunday when I was
Speaker:finally told about it. I've been asking verbally for lawyer from right when I got there. And
Speaker:then they finally told me on the Sunday at noon that you got to fill out a form and I'm like,
Speaker:what why are you telling us now? So I fill the form out right away. put it in and then at
Speaker:five o'clock when they lock down, because then they're locking down at five, apparently because
Speaker:there wasn't enough guards, that's what they're saying, I don't know why, but that's what they're
Speaker:saying. At five o'clock, I'm like, but I haven't talked to my lawyer yet. And the guy's like,
Speaker:the guy that guard just tells me, I haven't even, he doesn't even move my form along, the
Speaker:form just sitting on the desk. They basically just like laugh at me about talking to my lawyer.
Speaker:And that's the kind of like attitude across the board, is they don't want to. fulfill any
Speaker:requests. They don't want to, like, it's just the minimum. Some of it, to be fair to the
Speaker:guards, some of it is like there is a kind of like understandable element. There's a whole
Speaker:bunch of elements. First of all, if you humanize the person you need to sort of dehumanize,
Speaker:because the structure of course is structured that way, it's awkward for the individual if
Speaker:you want to like, you know, treat them like they're, you know... a human being, an equal
Speaker:or whatever, but then everything in the structure is telling you can't do that, that's of course
Speaker:going to make it harder on yourself to just do your job because then you feel bad about
Speaker:things and stuff like that. Some of it also on the other side, you know, the one of the
Speaker:guys, the guys who was in there with me, this guy, he shit himself repeatedly. Older guy,
Speaker:like about 70, he shit himself. just like all over his bed in his area. And then later on,
Speaker:he has, he was wearing a diaper when I first saw him. And then later on, he has his pants
Speaker:on with his diaper on top of his pants. So he didn't understand that you have to have the
Speaker:diaper on. This guy's in jail. Like I have no idea what they accused him of. But like, you
Speaker:know the guy should like. Like he doesn't understand, he can't physically control his body and he
Speaker:clearly doesn't understand. And this guy would go to the guards, kind of like all, like every
Speaker:15 minutes to ask something. So we would just have eaten, like an hour earlier, and he'd
Speaker:be going to the guards asking about food. And so you can even kind of understand from a guard's
Speaker:perspective that it's like, you don't know what's kind of like a reasonable request and what's
Speaker:just kind of like... Because there is, like there's tons of mental illness. There's tons
Speaker:of, you know, as I said a few places, like they ask you about suicide, and detention center
Speaker:asks you about suicide. And then right away when you get to prison, they ask you about
Speaker:suicide. And it's because they're bringing people to a large extent who have all kinds of like,
Speaker:in distress, mental illness, and they're putting them in a situation that's even more stressful
Speaker:and even more, right? So they're just exacerbating that. And I mean, they're asking about the
Speaker:suicide in part. to kind of cover their own ass. That's kind of like, I think from the,
Speaker:right? We tried, we tried to ensure that didn't happen or whatever kind of thing, but it is
Speaker:also real. I think it does, I'm sure there is a massive increase in attempts or actual suicides.
Speaker:So, you kind of look at all these. from these different directions and it yeah it's a totally
Speaker:dehumanizing I don't think that not being able to talk to my lawyer was about me I think it
Speaker:was about that all of us none of us were able to get to get through and uh and uh you know
Speaker:it's obviously outrageous that the that the prison does that or you know has that happened
Speaker:and then the guards themselves at the kind of lower level and that it's like it's wrong that
Speaker:they don't they don't realize that this is wrong and that they so I don't know maybe push a
Speaker:bit more, but they're kind of caught in this like awkward kind of position. So it's definitely
Speaker:not a You know, I don't think it I don't think there's like an easy solution like some of
Speaker:the people I talked to in You know, but number of people were there for beating or abusing
Speaker:their partners, right and Talking to this one guy who was just totally Like I would say on
Speaker:the surface it seemed just out of proportion kind of distressed with his situations. He
Speaker:was this 33-year-old guy, kind of pretty good shape. He looked like he had some physical,
Speaker:he had to hurt his hand. And I think he'd been in a fight with his partner. Don't know all
Speaker:the details and what exactly happened. But his level of distress, and then breaking down what
Speaker:his distress was over, was quite fascinating in terms of how you would deal with it. Because
Speaker:clearly he needed counseling. Clearly he needed counseling. But part of his issue was that
Speaker:his apartment, good price apartment by Metro that he got and that his partner got in the
Speaker:dispute. I obviously don't know all the details of the dispute. So clearly this guy needs counseling.
Speaker:I think he needs to be kept away from his partner. So those conditions that were there that he
Speaker:had breached, I think that makes sense. But part of the issue was housing. He was stressed,
Speaker:this guy, he'd been homeless when he was in his youth. And so he'd gotten a good deal of
Speaker:place. and knowing that it was unlikely he would be able to get another, you know, similar type
Speaker:situation. So like, clearly, like social housing, even though ostensibly social housing had nothing
Speaker:to do with this issue, social housing was part of the issue, right? Because that's a big part
Speaker:of what his stress was about, presumably also part of his, like, you know, ongoing conflict
Speaker:with his former partner. So, you know, when you look at it, how to intervene to not arrive
Speaker:at a situation where people are being put in that place, there's like a bunch of different
Speaker:interventions that are actually necessary. It's not a simple, you know, there's no sort of
Speaker:simple solution. But the first phase, of course, is to desire to not have people incarcerated.
Speaker:And to some extent, our society has that, but not enough. And then go about, you know, trying
Speaker:to figure that out. Yeah, like they're not directly related. But we know that, you know, so-called
Speaker:crime is directly correlated to levels of poverty and distress, social distress. So it is all
Speaker:interconnected and just being able to go inside and see this firsthand allows you to speak
Speaker:about it on a different level now. These charges have brought a different level of notoriety.
Speaker:I mean, it's not like- You were an unknown before this, many books written, I mean endless videos
Speaker:now in the last year and a half of you attempting to hold not just liberals but all elected officials
Speaker:that aren't doing enough accountable. I love that you posted a video almost the next day
Speaker:at a Jekmeet Singh conference, holding it to him, asking him about the fighter jet contract
Speaker:and Then I load up yesterday or just this morning, I see a Lantzman in front of your lens and
Speaker:I can't believe you just didn't even take a week off or anything. I mean, I, you know,
Speaker:I do those things because I, you know, I believe in doing them. I think they have, they're a
Speaker:useful form of political intervention. But I also have to say really clearly, I had an added
Speaker:motivation. I left a whole bunch of other things aside that I do really want to get to. energy
Speaker:to do that because I also wanted to send a message that like if you thought this was going to
Speaker:like stop me or this was going to intimidate me or all that kind of stuff that so there
Speaker:was this added motivation I want to do these to not just show not to show the authorities
Speaker:but actually to show all the people who you know kind of paid attention the issue and you
Speaker:know rallied in support that like yeah that you know and I because I think there is a there's
Speaker:a there's an act of defiance in there that I wanted to communicate um you know more broadly.
Speaker:I felt it. I felt it. Like the relief. Like I still think you deserved a few days off,
Speaker:by the way, but I understand completely what you said there. And cause I felt that just
Speaker:being like you hadn't missed a step. You had missed five days, but you hadn't like there
Speaker:was that defiance was still heard in your voice and you were still, you know, pressing folks.
Speaker:in an unapologetic way, right? Like you're known as an agitator and we know that that's in part
Speaker:why you were targeted, right? Many journalists have, well maybe not many, have, you know,
Speaker:used the fascist word label. A lot of people have identified pro-genocide supporters, Zionists.
Speaker:Most of them are open about their support for it, you know, they may not use the genocide
Speaker:word but it's not like a stretch. with all of the international rulings that have called
Speaker:it a genocide, I want to read Penn's statement out loud, or at least a couple sentences from
Speaker:their statement, because when we go back to the beginning of the conversation and we're
Speaker:talking about the kinds of charges Eve was facing and just how ridiculous they are, I think Penn
Speaker:just kind of summed it up pretty good here. They say they take the position that it's not
Speaker:a crime to take a pro-Palestinian stance in public. It is not a crime to object to those
Speaker:who support Israel's actions or to describe them as fascist. It's not a crime to criticize
Speaker:or condemn the state of Israel. It's not a crime to write that Israel's actions in Gaza are
Speaker:genocide. To object in print to others who support Israel's actions is not a threat to any individual
Speaker:or to the police. It is not harassment to object to actions taken by the Montreal police or
Speaker:to write about them. It's not a crime to ask other citizens of Canada to object to actions
Speaker:taken by the Montreal police. Every citizen of Canada is entitled to write their opinions
Speaker:and to speak out in public. Freedom of expression is a fundamental right whether one agrees with
Speaker:the content of such statements, or whether one disagrees with the content. So,
Speaker:We all know that that's true and when you read it so plain and clear like that, there's very
Speaker:few people I think across Canada even who do not like what you do, okay? Because you know,
Speaker:you've made enemies by design, but surely that no one would agree that what you did was worth
Speaker:any charges. And if the goal was to silence you but they achieve the opposite Do you think
Speaker:they're regretting their actions at this point? I would think so, but we know one part that's
Speaker:public, one part that's not. They have pursued sort of similar things now against Senator
Speaker:Wu and someone else that I can't name the specifics of at this point, meaning that Kurtz and Obermann
Speaker:have now going after the Canadian senator for having posted in solidarity. with my imprisonment.
Speaker:So they seem to believe they're going on the offensive further. So they don't seem to think
Speaker:that this was an error. I think it very clearly. It's a template for them. Yeah. And so to me,
Speaker:there's all kinds of elements in terms of pursuing. I think that the more that we can make Dalia
Speaker:Kurtz the face of pro-Israel, campaigning in Canada, I think the better from the standpoint
Speaker:of Palestine world, because I think it's not a, her positions are not ones that the vast
Speaker:majority of people are going to be sympathetic to. I also think that the whole Neil Obermann,
Speaker:the fact that he's a conservative candidate, and I was, Samira in the interview I did with
Speaker:her, she actually showed a clip of Poliev. calling Neil Obermann Doberman, like a dog, a vicious
Speaker:dog, and boasting that he needed to be in the House of Commons because of all the injunctions
Speaker:that he's taken out against Palestine. He's the one who took the injunction on the McGill
Speaker:encampment and others. And so the idea that the leader of the Conservative Party is saying
Speaker:that we need this like aggressive cancel culture. anti-free speech activist lawyer to be an MP.
Speaker:Now, yesterday when we went to the Lansman, myself and Alex Turow, the leader of the Green
Speaker:Party of Quebec, Alex asked one of the people at the table, this was a Neil Obermann event,
Speaker:and he asked one of the people with a Neil Obermann shirt on, basically that variation of that
Speaker:question, of what do you think people who... who criticized Israel's being thrown in jail,
Speaker:and the woman was like, of course not. This was somebody who was almost certainly very
Speaker:staunchly pro-Israel and a Neil Obermann supporter, and she just reacted, of course not. And yet,
Speaker:Neil Obermann has been kind of like working that. So yes, I think that there is this broad,
Speaker:when you get into the free speech kind of realm, you get a lot of people who don't necessarily
Speaker:support my, you know, stuff on Palestine, and maybe not maybe even be support Israel for
Speaker:that matter. But they get they you know they do believe in the principle of freedom of expression.
Speaker:And I think there are some fissures within you know like the conservative movement and polia
Speaker:like they do they do frame themselves as a sort of like they're you know they do this whole
Speaker:rhetoric of like the anti woke pro free speech and the you know the whole cancel culture kind
Speaker:of language and stuff like that. so that he's censoring the news on Canadian social media
Speaker:feeds. So there's some divisions there that I think are worth, certainly the Palestine
Speaker:solidarity world kind of like trying to exploit and trying to bring out and stuff like that.
Speaker:Obviously like, you know, the more that the pro-Israel movement is viewed as like authoritarian,
Speaker:there's there's a positive in that. Now, of course, it's been a very, like this isn't new,
Speaker:this isn't just in the last 16 months. I've seen this for 25 years now. Like that's my
Speaker:personal coming to political consciousness is not coming on Palestine. Like it comes from
Speaker:like anti-corporate globalization and sort of just sort of general kind of like left stuff
Speaker:and then being thrust into the Palestine kind of movement at Concordia, you know, 25 years
Speaker:ago. and seeing the authoritarian nature of the Zionist movement. That's all picked up
Speaker:massively over the past 16 months. It's not something new, but it's gotten a lot worse.
Speaker:So it's one thing to say that the more they're viewed as authoritarian, that may lead to greater
Speaker:sympathy for Palestine. But that's not exactly correct because it's been going on for quite
Speaker:a while. and how that exactly plays out. But I think that in terms of some of this stuff,
Speaker:the freedom of expression, we do, there is important to build broader kind of freedom of expression,
Speaker:Palestine, kind of consciousness campaigning. The pen letter, I think, does sort of contribute
Speaker:to that. And obviously all the other forms of support for my situation obviously also contribute
Speaker:to that. I wonder, will you change anything about the way you operate? Well, I obviously
Speaker:am not going to have any direct communication to Dahlia Kurtz and also the Montreal police
Speaker:inspector that I... Will you chirp at other people? Will it stop you from tagging folks
Speaker:when you've got or calling people fascists in that way? Oh no, not at all. No, no, not at
Speaker:all. Yeah, not at all. No, just, just the narrow in the... I have to have... There's some little
Speaker:bits on X that I haven't... There were some people who were posting. They had posted...
Speaker:Dahlia Kurtz's, they've tagged her. And then I wasn't really sure if I, if I didn't respond
Speaker:to them, like how, yeah, I don't know how exactly that would play out. Right. So I, I'm, I'm
Speaker:initially, if you reply, her tag will be there. You'd have to like take it off. Yeah. Like
Speaker:who's interpreting this. Yes. So I have some questions that I'm going to tread carefully.
Speaker:I don't like Dahlia Kurtz in that sense. It's like, I don't follow her on, on XID. totally
Speaker:inconsequential. I mean, in principle, I feel I should have the right to respond to it, of
Speaker:course, but fairly inconsequential in the kind of bigger thing. So I'm going to try to avoid
Speaker:that. But aside from that, my plan is, and like I said, my initial concern was that condition
Speaker:of keeping the peace because that also has this very broad implication or potential implication.
Speaker:But no, I don't plan to... to change, and I should say, I'm really clear, it further angers
Speaker:me or bitters me towards Zionist campaigning and the Zionist structure of, first of all,
Speaker:obviously supporting all of Israel's crimes, but also of using and abusing and the policing
Speaker:judicial system to, again, serve you know, killing more babies in Gaza. Yeah, and in support of
Speaker:a foreign state's policy. It is shocking to see the police deployed in such an extent to
Speaker:such a specific purpose. And so I don't think, and I agree with you, that not everything that
Speaker:happened to you was politically motivated. But when it's happening, it sure feels that way,
Speaker:right? Look what they're doing to him. And you know, it's just like it just added fuel to
Speaker:everybody's fire though. So in the same way you talk about, you know, exposing the authoritarianism,
Speaker:you know, taking that mask off, right? Whether it's the police, the crown, law firms, conservative
Speaker:candidates and all of that. It's, they only do it because we've gotten to a certain point
Speaker:where they're forced to use these ridiculous tactics that aren't even working. They're not
Speaker:working. Yes, it's, they took you away from your family for five days. It could cost you
Speaker:some resources. distress for sure, but they made you louder. They increased your audience.
Speaker:They had people reaffirming support for you, even though they had to couch it in like, I
Speaker:may not agree with everything Eve does, right? But I stand with him right now. So people who
Speaker:thought maybe they would never have, would stand alongside of you did. So, and this happens
Speaker:with other arrestees as well, you know, who... fight or find community in the process, you
Speaker:know, have jail support, have legal support and can take this stand. They end up stronger,
Speaker:more connected, more informative. They've you know, I don't know if you were before, but
Speaker:you know, now you're talking abolition a little bit. You said you didn't remember what the
Speaker:original question was, but it was just that whether you thought they regretted what they
Speaker:did. And so yeah, like they might attempt this again and again, but every time they do and
Speaker:every time they tighten that fist. It just seems to make us stronger and more determined as
Speaker:individuals and as a movement because you know you're mad about what happened to you. Many
Speaker:other people are mad about what happened to you. Many of us who do that kind of snarkiness
Speaker:on the internet or can be affront to some people and their identities and whatnot. You know
Speaker:it had them thinking about What does this mean for me? Like, are we all just targets? But
Speaker:I don't think it's going to slow anybody down in the same way it hasn't really slowed any
Speaker:of the movement down, despite all of these arrests and threats and, you know, the narratives that
Speaker:flowed out there. We're all supporters of terrorism. None of it. None of this garbage has really...
Speaker:It's done the complete opposite. So... I guess that's a message to folks who feel distress
Speaker:seeing this, like feel like we're deep in fascism and this police state is just ever widening.
Speaker:It is a sign that they are afraid and they are having to deploy tactics they normally would
Speaker:have reserved, you know, for emergencies. So
Speaker:It's a response to the upsurge. There's never been, in the history of Canadian foreign policy,
Speaker:there's never been an instance of more activism over a Canada's complicity in international
Speaker:crime than there has been over the past 16 months. So part of the attacks against Palestine solidarity
Speaker:is because there's been so much of it. So that's a positive. On the note of... You know, how
Speaker:I am, there's a discomfort in some of the, how you respond to some of this suppression and
Speaker:state authority and stuff like that. Because I do think obviously it's healthy. We need
Speaker:to know, for instance, the history, you know, they, they were people killed against conscription
Speaker:during World War I. They killed Ginger Goodwin out Vancouver Island, World War I. There was
Speaker:tons and tons of people thrown in jail. World War II also, the mayor of Montreal, the head
Speaker:of the Siemens Union thrown in jail, Korean War. There was the head of the Canadian Peace
Speaker:Congress. His house was firebombed and Lester Pearson was calling on people to destroy the
Speaker:Peace Congress and then Foreign Minister Lester Pearson. And so there is long history of repression
Speaker:against international focus kind of. activism or and other for that matter, of course, activists
Speaker:as well, anti-war. And so we should know that history and we should obviously know about
Speaker:all these outrageous cases across the country of different activists that have been in their
Speaker:houses raided over the past year or year and a half. All that's really important, but there's
Speaker:also a line between that and I would say unhealthy paranoia
Speaker:and we are all weak and therefore, you know, what leads to inactivity, right? And it can
Speaker:lead to inactivity. I've seen many, many experiences over many years about people who, who they,
Speaker:their, their conception of the extent of the state surveillance slash repression, I think
Speaker:goes beyond the I don't know the reality and gets into like and then it becomes I think
Speaker:in some ways it can become a justification for not acting that there's an element sometimes
Speaker:but it but it just effectively takes on a well I'm not gonna act cuz I'm cuz I'm too scared
Speaker:or because it's too overwhelming and stuff like that or futile right if you believe the state
Speaker:is all that powerful what are you to Yeah. And so that's one of the things that I'm also happy
Speaker:in all this, is to get a win. And ultimately, it's a really minimal win, right? It's just
Speaker:like no condition about speaking. In some sense, it's like a ridiculously small win. But to
Speaker:get that win, I hope breaks down some of that, the futile, some of that, and gives a little
Speaker:bit of boost to... to the movement, to Palestine, to all how it all, what exactly that movement
Speaker:is, but mostly Palestine. But yeah. It is. Like when you think about it in the grand scheme
Speaker:of things, just securing your basic rights, right? Like making sure your bail conditions
Speaker:weren't unconstitutional shouldn't be a victory. But it really felt like one, right? It really
Speaker:did. Especially to folks who have been watching your work so closely and understand. its relation
Speaker:to the Canadian state. So it was just like, if they could silence you on this little thing,
Speaker:it would have set a horrible precedent, you know, and it felt a lot bigger, you know, even
Speaker:my partner here who doesn't follow a whole lot. When I said, Eve is out, he knew that was a
Speaker:very good thing and he it brought him a level of relief. Like it was I know you didn't feel
Speaker:that and this isn't to center like how all we felt, but it was, it was a mix of emotions
Speaker:I think for a lot of folks that just, especially people who hadn't been exposed to the pervasiveness.
Speaker:I know you want to like try to not minimize it, but cautious around how we talk about that
Speaker:but I think people are shocked at the behavior of police. You know, it's something you read
Speaker:about, we talk about what a police state looks like or fascism and but to see it happen like
Speaker:that and that's why I asked you at one point did you not think it was a prank at some point
Speaker:that like your tweets to Dahlia were leading to an arrest? Like a real one not just like
Speaker:I'm calling you scare you like a cease and desist letter it was like no they were ready to cuff
Speaker:you because you called someone a fascist on the internet it just seems surreal honestly.
Speaker:But it was very real. I very much appreciate you holding fast. I've said that a few times.
Speaker:I said it on Twitter because like I was holding my breath a little bit because it meant a lot
Speaker:for you not to give up on those conditions But at the same time you don't want to put pressures
Speaker:on an individual It's when I read you had a two-year-old, you know having littles myself.
Speaker:I go I that's tough you know, you do just want to be in and out in there in 15 minutes not
Speaker:because you have shit to do but because there's all of the awful things you describe while
Speaker:you were in there, you know, amongst other things. So I know it wasn't easy, but we very much
Speaker:appreciate you fighting those conditions so that we could hear all about your case, but
Speaker:also for selfish reasons, like for our for our movement and for us as individuals to kind
Speaker:of strengthen our resolve and our understanding of what's on the line here. So thank you for
Speaker:doing that and for spending your precious time in our studio today. You must have a million
Speaker:things to write about and to talk about, so yeah, our audience very much appreciates it,
Speaker:Eve. Thank you. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. If you like what
Speaker:you heard, be sure to share the episode on your own social media feeds. You can also take a
Speaker:quick minute and give us a great review on whatever platform you're using to listen. Before we
Speaker:go though, Here is that folk song Eve referenced in his thank you letter. It's David Rovix with
Speaker:What's Going On Here, Montreal. ["What's Going On Here, Montreal"]
Speaker:Who is Dahlia Kurtz? It seems she mainly likes to post lies about what's happening in Gaza,
Speaker:the Holocaust that she denies. Eve Engler is a journalist, and who knows why it is. He's
Speaker:been arrested for pointing out his fetus, full of stuff like this. What's going on here, Montreal?
Speaker:It's anybody's guess. Seems the cops are taking orders from Jerusalem, And they've come to
Speaker:imprison the press.
Speaker:Is Dahlia Kurtzen, why is she coming up in my feed? When I go to her page on X, I too am
Speaker:outraged indeed. And that's what happened to Eve, and so he posted a reply. And now he's
Speaker:been arrested. And... We'd like to know why. What's going on here, Montreal? It's anybody's
Speaker:guess. Seems the cops are taking orders from Jerusalem, and they've come to imprison the
Speaker:press. Who is Dahlia Kurtz? And who decided that we? Should see the horrid stuff she posts
Speaker:on the top of my feed And when did freedom of speech get fed to the cats? And how many of
Speaker:you out there didn't think you lived in a country like that? What's going on here, Montreal?
Speaker:It's anybody's guess. Seems the cops are taking orders from Jerusalem, and they've come to
Speaker:imprison the press. What's going on here, Montreal? It's anybody's guess. Seems the cops are taking
Speaker:orders from Jerusalem, and they've come to imprison the press.
Speaker:Until next time, keep disrupting.