Author of the article: Jason Magder • Montreal Gazette
Publication date: Jul 08, 2022 • 1 day ago • 4 min read • 12 comments Gabriel Sohier Chaput, who appeared in a Montreal court in February 2022, testified that his writings on a neo-Nazi website should not be taken seriously. Photo by John Mahoney/Montreal Gazette

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The trial of a Montrealer accused of hate speech turned Friday into a curious debate over whether the Nazis were responsible for the Holocaust.

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In court, the defense lawyer representing Gabriel Sohier Chaput, who is on trial on charges of inciting hatred, insisted that the Holocaust was merely an “economic solution”. “The Nazis did not initially intend to kill millions of Jews in concentration camps,” defense lawyer Hélène Poussard told the court. “It was a solution that someone close to Hitler came up with to save money. It was cheaper to gas these people than to (release) them. They were brought to camps to get their stuff, but the idea of ​​gassing them was strictly economic. That’s what I learned in school. What do you want me to say? I’m not trying to shock people and I might be wrong. “To me, it is clear that Jews were killed in concentration camps, by Germans, but were those Germans Nazis? Yes. It can. But that’s not necessarily what it means when we use the term Nazi, that’s what it means.”

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Poussard added that she did not believe that the Nazis, Adolf Hitler’s political party, were behind the Holocaust. He said that the term Nazi simply referred to a National Socialist and the original intention of the party was not to exterminate the Jews. “I think you should stop talking. you are saying things that go against what is reasonable,” Judge Manlio Del Negro told Poussard in court. The debate began because Crown prosecutor Patrick Lafrenière argued in his closing arguments that the judge could take for granted that when Sohier Chaput referred to “non-stop Nazism” in his writings, he was referring to persecution and violence against Jews, as it is known . the Nazis committed the Holocaust against the Jewish people, exterminating six million during World War II.

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Del Negro, however, said Lafreniere erred by not calling a witness to properly explain the meaning of “Nazism,” which is why lawyers could not agree on the term Friday. Protester Sao sits outside a Montreal courthouse on the final day of the trial of alleged neo-Nazi ideologue and propagandist Gabriel Sohier Chaput in Montreal Friday, July 8, 2022. The Montreal anti-fascist group held an anti-Nazi protest outside the courthouse from 11 a.m. .m. to 2 p.m. Chaput is on trial for hate speech. Photo by John Kenney /Montreal Gazette Lafrenière concluded his closing argument Friday, saying Sohier Chaput knew he was spreading hate when he published an article on the Daily Stormer website. Sohier Chaput knew that by invoking the Holocaust and “non-stop Nazism” he was not just offensive, but inciting hatred against an identifiable group – an indictable offense that carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison, Lafrenière argued. “He posted on a website, the Daily Stormer, that was clearly visible to the general public and was clearly an instrument of spreading hate,” he said.

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Lafrenière said that anyone reading Sohier Chaput’s remarks can conclude that he was spreading a message of hatred against Jews. While Lafrenière was making his arguments, a protest was held outside the court by a group denouncing the authorities’ handling of the Sohier Chaput investigation. Montréal Antifasciste called the proceedings “a botched police investigation and an ill-prepared prosecution, which is all the more grim given the overwhelming mass of evidence already gathered by reporters from the Montreal Gazette.” A former IT consultant, Sohier Chaput was the focus of a series of Gazette articles in 2018 that described him as one of North America’s most prominent neo-Nazis. The series said he hosted neo-Nazi meetings in Montreal and attended the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., where a right-wing extremist drove his vehicle into a crowd and killed a 32-year-old counter-protester.

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Writing under the name Zeiger, Sohier Chaput was the Daily Stormer’s second most prolific contributor. He faces a charge of willfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group, stemming from a 2017 article that warned “this will be the year of action”. “We must make sure that no (social justice warrior) or Jew can safely remain unfired,” the article reads. “Non-stop Nazism, everywhere, until the very streets are flooded with the tears of our enemies.” The trial continued Friday after it began in March, when Pussard said Sohier Sapou’s writings may have been repulsive, but he had the right to write them under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. “Hate speech often blames the target group for something, like the Jews were responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center. Mr. Sohier (Chaput) did not do that,” Poussard argued.

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He added that the writings could be considered criminal if a reasonable person reading them would be motivated to act against the targeted group. That was not the case with the papers in question, Poussard said. He pointed out that among the 800 to 1,000 articles Sohier Chaput wrote, prosecutors were able to use only one as the basis for criminal charges. Giving evidence in his defence, Sohier Chaput said his writings were exaggerations and should not be taken seriously. Montréal Antifasciste said that regardless of the verdict, it is up to all citizens to root out hatred. “We must deny Nazis, white supremacists and other fascists the space to grow and thrive,” the group wrote. The parties will be back in court on August 29 to schedule the next trial. [email protected] twitter.com/jasonmagder

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