‘Cannot stop us’: 3 Montreal pro-Palestinian protesters charged with criminal harassment of federal immigration minister

Three pro-Palestinian activists were arrested and charged for allegedly criminally harassing federal immigration minister Marc Miller.

Samar Alkhdour Elkahlout is one of those activists. She’s been taking part in regular sit-ins outside Miller’s Montreal office in the Sud-Ouest borough because her daughter Jana died in Gaza earlier this year.

She wants the Canadian government to intervene in the war.

But last Friday, a warrant was issued for her arrest. Elkahlout’s lawyer, Barbara Bedont, says that on Sept. 5th, her client had what she calls an interaction with Miller outside the Liberal campaign office in Verdun, ahead of the federal byelection in the riding.

“It was natural for me to yell at him because I’m angry, because I’m sad,” said Alkhdour Elkahlout.

Bedont says her client was wrapping up the demonstration when Miller arrived in his van.

“They saw him and Ms. Elkahlout took the opportunity to go and express her views,” she said. “He went back into the car, so he was in the car, she was on the outside, and she was just shouting certain things to him and he drove off and that was it.”

Alkhdour Elkahlout turned herself in on Monday and because she refused the conditions of the arrest, she was detained and appeared in court on Tuesday. 

She then agreed to stay 50 metres away from Miller and his staff and to refrain from speaking publicly about the case itself after Tuesday.

We spoke to her that night, as she was waiting for a fellow protester to be released from detention.

“They want to suppress these demonstrations, they want this to end, but the only way for the demonstrations to end is for them to put an end to the genocide happening in Gaza,” Alkhdour Elkahlout said.

In addition to criminal harassment, she and the two others were charged with mischief.

“Freedom of expression is not meant to protect pleasant ‘chit-chat,'” Bedont said. “We have it in our constitution in black-and-white and it’s to protect speech that is unpleasant, uncomfortable. It’s meant to allow people citizens to hold the politicians feet to the fire.”

Alkhdour Elkahlout’s 13-year-old daughter Jana, who suffered from cerebral palsy, died in Gaza of malnutrition. She says she had been trying to repatriate her for years. 

On Wednesday, at her lawyer’s office, she said politicians ignored her cry for help before her daughter’s death.

“The fact that she got the green light to come to Canada two weeks after she got murdered, that makes me angry. nd this is kind of like fueling my activism.

Miller’s riding office in Montreal’s has been previously the target of vandalism and remains closed to the public because of it.

A spokesperson for Miller said he can’t comment on the arrests.

On Tuesday, Miller told reporters while in B.C. for caucus meetings that he didn’t personally file the complaint. He added that people have the right to demonstrate peacefully, but that his staff felt attacked by certain people. He said they will let the justice system do their job.

Meanwhile, Alkhdour Elkahlout says she will continue her demonstrations, as she was doing outside the Liberal campaign office in Verdun on Wednesday afternoon.

“It’s my home country, it’s my own people, I have family there, I lost my daughter there, so I assume that that’s an enough reason to go on with this,” she said. “We have the right to do this, you cannot stop us.”