Send an urgent message to Canadian legislators urging them to stop Trudeau’s ‘Online Harms Act’
TORONTO (LifeSiteNews) — Rebel News reporter David Menzies has been released from jail after being arrested and charged while covering a pro-Palestine protest in Toronto.
In a March 15 video by Rebel News, Menzies, known for on-the-ground reporting, can be seen being removed from the pro-Palestine protest by police after attempting to interview one of the areas more prominent demonstrators.
🚨BREAKING: Toronto Police just arrested David Menzies (@TheMenzoid) for reporting on a Hamas hate rally!
When he tried to interview a Hamas protester, police grabbed him.
Watch this insanity — and help us fight back.https://t.co/HusmT5E0sC pic.twitter.com/Erh45zZC7K
— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) March 16, 2024
Upon being question by police, video footage seems to show Menzies take out his wallet to provide identification to officers. However, before he could show his identification to police, one officer order him to be handcuffed saying, “You’re under arrest for obstructing police.”
In an update released by Rebel News the following day, the outlet stated that while Menzies has been released from jail, he was first charged with obstructing police.
“I was certain they’d release David very quickly when they realized he didn’t do anything wrong,” Rebel News editor and founder Ezra Levant wrote after the arrest. “You’d think a senior officer would have looked at the videotape of the false arrest and immediately let David go with an apology.”
Following Menzies release, Rebel News announced that it would be both challenging the charges and pursuing legal action against the police “for false arrest, negligent investigation, false imprisonment and assault.”
Levant also revealed that the outlet plans to sue under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, arguing that “police violated David’s freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom of movement.”
This is hardly the first time Menzies has been arrested while working as a journalist. In January, video footage seemed to show the Canadian reporter being falsely accused of “assault” by a police officer and then immediately apprehended while he was attempting to ask Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland questions on a public street.
In the January video, which went viral internationally, Menzies is seen walking beside Freeland on a street in the Toronto suburb of Richmond Hill, Ontario, attempting to ask her questions about Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and why the group has not been given a terrorist designation by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, of which she is second in command.
Seconds later, the video footage appears to show a plainclothes police officer, who is now confirmed to be a member of the RCMP, positioning his body directly in Menzies’ path, effectively forcing physical contact between himself and the reporter.
After the two lightly bump into each other — contact that the video seems to indicate was initiated by the officer and not Menzies — the officer begins to arrest Menzies in a rather aggressive manner while accusing the reporter of physically assaulting a police officer. Menzies, visibly shocked at the series of events, was then taken away by members of the York Regional Police, the local force operating in Richmond Hill.
While Menzies was released without charge in the January arrest, Rebel News has since launched a lawsuit against the the federal government and five Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers, arguing that their treatment of Menzies is part of a “pattern of intimidation and exclusion against Rebel News journalists” that contravenes Canadian law.
Send an urgent message to Canadian legislators urging them to stop Trudeau’s ‘Online Harms Act’