Antifascist

On March 16, the day after the massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand, Montréal Antifasciste organized a rally in solidarity with the victims, which was simultaneously an antiracist counter-demonstration, given the presence on the site of notorious Islamophobes, one of whom publicly “thanked” the terrorist responsible for the attack. Here’s a report back: The day after the white supremacist and fascist terrorist attack in New Zealand found us in a state of shock. Besides the absolutely despicable nature of the attack—the killer filmed and live streamed the murders of fifty people at two different mosques—two things jumped out at us. First, the terrorist’s manifesto indicated the influence of an “ecofascist” discourse, which calls to mind ideas advanced by Atalante Québec and other neo-fascists. Second, he paid homage to Québec terrorist Alexandre Bissonnette by inscribing Bissonnette’s name on one of his cartridge clips. ...

The Coalition Avenir Québec is moving forward with its ban on the wearing of religious symbols by many public sector workers. No matter the party in power, we’re against the government telling people how to dress, as well as feeding fear and hatred of Muslims, and Muslim women in particular, under the pretext of “secularism”. ...

On Friday, March 15, 2019, less than 24 hours after the Islamophobic massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand, a Québec internet site published a French translation of the killer’s manifesto. Why would someone be in such a rush to translate this document and amplify the killer’s message? This wasn’t a just some error that we can chalk up to a serious journalistic blunder: it was the intentional signal boosting of an Islamophobic manifesto. The translator’s online Islamophobia is extensive and well-documented. ...

We from Montréal Antifasciste extend our solidarity to all Muslims and to all people of color and antifascists in Christchurch and across Aotearoa. It was with horror that we learned of the massacre that took place in Christchurch on March 15th. Horror that only deepened with every new detail, as we read the assassin’s manifesto, as we learned that racists around the world – including in Aotearoa, including in Quebec – were shamelessly sharing his diy snuff film and cheering his acts. ...

In May of 2018, Montreal anti-fascists leaked the contents of a private neo-Nazi chat room called “Montreal Storm” (short for Montreal Stormer Book Club * ), which was active from August 2016 to January 2018, and included 55 users. The leak made it possible to identify several members of the chat room, including Shawn Beauvais MacDonald , Vincent Bélanger Mercure and Gabriel Sohier Chaput , alias Zeiger . The latter was revealed by the Montreal Gazette to be a prolific propagandist for the most radical wing of the Alt-Right and a frequent contributor to The Daily Stormer , arguably the most influential Alt-Right/neo-Nazi website in the world in the 2016-2017 period, and to this day. ...

Montréal Antifasciste recently published an in-depth report on the neo-fascist organization Atalante Québec. That article covers Atalante’s links to similar organizations worldwide, as well as the group’s fascist-inspired political project. It also reveals the identities of most of the group’s core members based in both Québec City and Montréal. One part dedicated to the RAC band Légitime Violence revealed that this type of organization needs to cultivate a presence in very specific communities, namely counter-cultural musical scenes, in order to recruit new members. This is precisely the role played by Légitime Violence, whose members are also all members of Atalante and which was started by the fascist group’s leader, Raphaël Lévesque aka Raf Stomper. We have also seen that a large proportion of Atalante’s members and sympathizers are fans of Légitime Violence, as well as fans of so-called “extreme” music subgenres such as National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM). ...

Call to Action from Ottawa Against Fascism Currently, pro-pipeline reactionaries are planning a truck convoy from Alberta to Ottawa. This intended show of force is meant to pressure the federal government into taking more forceful actions to get major new oil and gas pipelines built. At a time when Indigenous peoples are heroically resisting massive industrialization in the Pacific Northwest, we must fight back against this foray of far-right forces into pro-pipeline activism before it becomes a real threat. ...

Almost two years ago, on January 29, 2017, Alexandre Bissonnette entered a mosque in Quebec City in Canada and in the course of a few minutes, murdered Azzeddine Soufiane, Mamadou Tanou Barry, Khaled Belkacemi, Aboubaker Thabti, Ibrahima Barry and Abdelkrim Hassane. Nineteen others were injured, many severely. What follows is a list of events commemorating the massacre on Tuesday, January 29, that we at Montréal Antifasciste are aware of. Please note that inclusion of an event does not necessarily indicate endorsement of the event or organizers. Thank you to those comrades who helped put this list together. ...

Raphaël Lévesque, the public face of the neofascist group Atalante, really likes the attention his little stunts get him (that’s why he has long since stopped hiding his identity). However, the central role of a single individual should not prevent us from looking at the people who gravitate to his leadership, because a movement like Atalante is nothing without the militants that give it life. All the actions that the group has carried out in Québec City and Montréal over the past two years to increase its visibility suggest that, along with its more visible members, Atalante can count on a reserve of a few dozen individuals who support the ultranationalist cause. Despite its small numbers, the group has caught the eye of a section of the mainstream media and has made effective use of social media to promote a so-called “national revolutionary” position within Québec’s far right. ...

On Saturday, December 8, around two hundred right-wing sympathizers gathered on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to protest the “ Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration ,” which was in the process of being approved by acclamation at a United Nations conference in Morocco. After over a month of planning, the demonstration itself barely filled the space in front of Parliament and was in no way a triumph by the far right. That being said, the rally was at least superficially successful in uniting a host of far-right groups of differing ideologies to announce their xenophobic opposition to the UN compact and propagate their Islamophobic and racist views. Antifascists from Québec and Ontario, despite their clearly enunciated skepticism regarding the compact, organized to oppose the far right’s attempt to claim public space. ...

“Welcome to the official Blood & Honour page—the Québec division of the nationalist identitairian secular movement for a National Socialist autocracy.” We were shocked to read this introduction to a new Facebook page that appeared on Saturday, November 3 in the early afternoon, announcing the formation of a “Québec Division” of the openly neo-Nazi “Blood & Honour”: What is Blood & Honour? Blood & Honour, an international neo-Nazi organization founded in the UK in 1987, takes its name from the Hitler Youth slogan Blut und Ehre, and from a song of that title by the white power band Skrewdriver. Initially rooted in the Rock Against Communism scene, Blood & Honour sections have sprung across the planet over the years. Blood and Honour remains a largely bonehead organization fully committed to neo-Nazi principles and regularly involved in violent actions. ...

In a desperate attempt to influence the recent Quebec elections, La Meute has been popping up in the last few weeks with small, decentralized actions. Though the mainstream media has been giving them far too much attention for their size, the extreme-right group’s actions haven’t gained much popular support, in stark contradiction to their leader Sylvain ”Maikan” Brouillette’s slogan: “40,000 members, 40,000 votes”. It’s within this context that, on the 15th of September, Steeve “L’artiss” Charland (Maikan’s potential rival) led a “mobile protest” which was, in reality, simply a bunch of cars driving around with La Meute flags or stickers. The meet-up for the dozen or so La Meute members was Oka, right next to the Mohawk community of Kanesatake. Upon their arrival, members of the Kanesatake community mobilized to kick them out, subjecting them to boos and insults as they left, and in so doing, refusing to allow their community to be used in the way the extreme-right group have been attempting to use them during the past few months. ...