Association of Palestinian Arab Canadians (APAC) Statement on the City of Ottawa Issuing Tickets to Protesters

Tens of thousands of Canadians have been gathering for 10 weeks in a row in Ottawa to express their solidarity with the Palestinian people and to urge our government to push for a permanent ceasefire and an end to the blockade of Gaza.

As we approach the third month of Israel’s war on the Palestinian people, our appeals for ceasefire are as urgent as ever. Israel continues to murder children at the rate of one child every 10 minutes. The death toll has surged past 20,000 Palestinians killed by Israel and there are no signs that this genocide is coming to an end.

The humanitarian situation according to the world’s most reputable human rights organizations and the United Nations (UN) is catastrophic and grows more dire as each moment passes as the lack of food, clean water, medical supplies and life’s basic necessities are denied to Palestinians.

Against this backdrop, APAC renews our commitment to peaceful protest and to continue to pressure our elected officials through all legal means. We will not be deterred by the City of Ottawa’s efforts to silence calls for a ceasefire and respect for human rights by issuing these fines.

We are deeply concerned by the City of Ottawa’s selective enforcement of this noise ordinance. APAC and numerous allies have exercised our legal right to peaceful assembly for 10 weeks in a row with the use of amplification systems. The City did not enforce this noise ordinance at any of the previous protests. The change in approach has left us perplexed. The City offered no advance notice of the change in approach and no explanation since.

Regardless of the motivations, APAC strongly opposes any decision to prevent the use of sound amplification systems at protests aimed at demanding our government push for a ceasefire, as these fundamentally cripple our ability to communicate with our supporters.

It is a shocking double standard that the City of Ottawa, under the leadership of Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, chose to bathe City Hall in blue and white after close to 1,200 Israelis were killed on October 7 but refused calls to do the same for Palestinians even though almost 20 times the number of Palestinians have been brutally murdered since October 7.

It is shameful that the City of Ottawa would choose to silence protesters calling for a ceasefire and appealing for human rights at a time when UN experts are warning the world that a genocide is unfolding in front of our very eyes.

We call on the City of Ottawa to cancel these tickets and refrain from further enforcement of this noise ordinance.

APAC Board of Directors