"It is your journalistic obligation to include voices from the protesters and organizers themselves to balance the record. Please include voices from protesters, PYM, and Jews Say No To Genocide and shed light on the issue of Canada’s police brutality."
April 1, 2024
To:
Alex Arsenych, Journalist, CTVNewsToronto.ca
Chris Fox, Managing Digital Producer, CP24
Dan Taylor, Managing Editor, CTV News
Michael Stittle, Managing Editor, CTV News
Dear Alex Arsenych, Chris Fox, Dan Taylor, and Michael Stittle,
I am writing on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East to express concern regarding your article: “3 charged following downtown Toronto protest: police,” published on March 31.
I take foremost issue with the article being one-sided.
While the article is about the Saturday pro-Palestine protest that took place in Toronto, your article makes it all about the arrests and not the actual context and intentions of this protest.
You write: “The protest was calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, a complete arms embargo, the blockade in Gaza to be lifted and sanctions on Israel.” While this is true, this is not the whole picture.
March 30 is Land Day, where six Palestinians were killed by Israeli police in 1976 during protests against Israeli expropriation and occupation of Palestinian lands. This day is also noteworthy because it is seen as the first time that Palestinian Citizens of Israel organized collectively against Israeli policies. Each year, rallies across the world are organized to commemorate it. This year was even more significant because it marked the 48th anniversary of Land Day.[1]
According to the Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC), since October 7, Israel has expropriated 27 sqkm of Palestinian land, built more settlements, approved 1,895 settlement units, and carried out 9,700 attacks against Palestinians and their homes in the West Bank.
While Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and frequently carries out illegal raids in the West Bank, it is disappointing that such an article will leave the intentions of this protest in the broader context that it inserts itself.
It is your journalistic obligation to include the context of this protest to be fair. Please do so.
Second, it was disappointing that you gave the first voice and overwhelmingly more space to the Toronto Police and their side of the story, especially given Canada’s history of police brutality. It is also ironic to make it all about the arrests while this very protest was organized to denounce Israeli police brutality against Palestinians marked by Land Day, a piece of information that you failed to mention and that furthers your bias.
You write: “According to police, while they were seizing the truck, demonstrators ‘became aggressive and assaultive’ towards them.”
One of the organizers of this protest, the Palestinian Youth Movement Toronto (PYM), released a statement on their Instagram page to explain what happened.
In the Instagram statement, Gur Tsabar, a member of Jews Say No to Genocide, which sponsored the rally, said it is a selective use of laws. He’s quoted saying: “[The police] were with us every step of the way for the past 20-some odd weeks. And they never, ever did [this] prior.”
In this same statement, PYM reports that when the truck was stopped, police “yanked a small soman off its backbed. […] More police officers arrived, they began pushing demonstrators without warning and pinned some to the ground to arrest them. Police also pushed people back with bikes. […] Later in that video and in others, mounted police are seen riding their horses through the crowd. The police knocked several people over with their horses, nearly trampling them.”
Dalia Awwad, a member of PYM, says the police are escalating their use of force in response to protests. She mentions the Police sending PR campaigns to criminalize the protesters and terrorize the community. In the caption of their Instagram post, PYM does mention that these actions are not isolated and are a continuous trend of state-sanctioned violence and brutality.
A Toronto Star article sheds light on the excessive use of force by Toronto Police during this protest and gives voice to the protesters and organizers to try to balance the record of what happened.
It is your journalistic obligation to include voices from the protesters and organizers themselves to balance the record. Please include voices from protesters, PYM, and Jews Say No To Genocide and shed light on the issue of Canada’s police brutality.
I hope CP24 will make these changes and respect basic journalistic obligations when reporting on local demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine.
Sincerely,
Fatima Haidar
Media Analyst, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East
[1] Middle East Eye (MEE), “Land Day: Palestinians mark 48th anniversary amid war, death and land theft” (March 30, 2024), https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/land-day-palestinians-anniversary-war-death-land-theft