Charges against Vesam Kuli remain

Prosecutors have dropped charges against a man arrested in Calgary for repeatedly using a phrase heard at pro-Palestinian rallies across the country amid controversy surrounding the controversial song.

Police earlier this month charged Wesam Quli, also known as Wesam Khalid, with inciting the riot. Hate motivation was used.

“The Alberta Crown Prosecution Service conducted an independent and thorough review of the material after it was provided to us,” spokeswoman Michelle Davio said in an emailed statement Friday.

“ACPS has determined that there is no reasonable likelihood of a conviction on the charges. The case is dismissed because the matter does not meet ACPS's threshold for prosecution.”

Quli's lawyer, Zachary al-Khatib, said his client was arrested earlier this week for chanting “Palestinians from the river to the sea will be free.”

He said there was nothing hateful about calling for freedom and equality for Palestinians from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.

“It is unfortunate that a Calgary police officer acted in this situation,” he said in an email before receiving the stay notice.

“None of us – regardless of our stance on this conflict – should want our society to be a place where political speech is criminalized. “Ideas and political slogans should be discussed and decided in the public square.”

Al-Khatib said Friday that he was pleased with the swift action of the prosecutor's office.

“It tells me that, given the evidence and the public interest, it was decided that this case had no merit,” he said.

“Such payments need to be carefully considered.”

Two groups of protesters gathered at Calgary City Hall on Nov. 5 to show support for Palestine and Israel amid conflict in the Middle East, police said. Officers met with each group to discuss some of the language and signs of past protests to ensure the safety of participants.

Police admitted that Cooley took the stage and spoke to officers, then called on the crowd to follow him and repeatedly used “anti-Semitic language.”

Cooley, Al-Khatib said, told police he refused to sing.

No one from Calgary police immediately responded to a request for comment Friday.

They said earlier in the week that the charge looked at the full context of a person's behavior and was broader than “a single phrase, gesture, sign or symbol”.

The police recommended that the court consider applying a section of the Criminal Code that allows the sentence to be increased if the suspect is convicted and there is sufficient evidence that the crime was committed in a hate crime.

“From the river to the sea” has become a catchphrase that has rattled Jewish and pro-Palestinian activists since the deadly October 7 attacks by Hamas in southern Israel and later Israel's bombing of the Gaza Strip.

It was used by protesters at rallies across the country, including in Montreal, where Jewish schools were shot at.

Protesters who surrounded a Vancouver bar on Tuesday night while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in attendance chanted the same slogan.

Many pro-Palestinian activists said the song was a call for peace and equality after 75 years of Israeli statehood.

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East added that it was a simple call for freedom.

“We are appalled by the shocking extremes of this arrest, which is an example of racism against Palestinians,” President Thomas Woodley said before the charges were filed.

However, Jewish activists said they heard a clear call for the destruction of Israel in the song.

Yair Szlak, president and CEO of the Jewish Defense Federation CJA, said he considered it an example of hate speech.

“Israel is bordered by the Jordan River on one side and the Mediterranean Sea on the other,” he said earlier this week. “When you have people chanting “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea,'' I would ask: Where will the Jewish people go?

“Going to the ocean is not the answer. It's hate speech, which is targeting a group of people and saying you don't belong in this country.”

According to Slack, the song creates “psychological terrorism” for the Jewish people.

James Turk, director of Toronto Metropolitan University's Center for Free Expression, says the word is offensive to many in the Jewish community and a nightmare to many Palestinians.

“People hear it differently, people mean it differently,” he said.

Speaking before the stay was announced, Turk said he would be surprised if prosecutors allowed the charges to go to trial.

“Even though it's a hateful version of it, I don't think it's illegal speech in Canada,” he said.

“The Supreme Court is very clear that the reason for freedom of speech is that it is the basis of the ongoing public debate that is the foundation of democracy.”

Turk said it was not legally sufficient to offend the word.

“I'm very upset that someone defends Palestine or Israel, that's the price of being in a democratic society,” he said. “When I hear this, my right is to condemn him.

“For the Calgary Police Department to say, 'We're not going to allow this kind of thing because some segment of the public finds it deeply offensive and offensive,' that's not how free expression in a democratic society is supposed to work.” .”

– With files from Thomas MacDonald and The Associated Press in Montreal