Hundreds of anti-Jewish pamphlets found at Casa Loma campus
Hundreds of anti-Jewish pamphlets were found at George Brown College on Feb. 19. Photo: Mick Sweetman/The Dialog
Hundreds of anti-Jewish pamphlets were discovered, and quickly removed from, George Brown College’s (GBC) Casa Loma campus last week.
On Thursday, Feb. 19 pamphlets with the titles of “Manufactured Terrorism” and “Your rights: ILLEGAL!” were left without permission on racks of The Dialog newspaper.
Chock-full of conspiracy-theories, they focus on the long-discredited anti-Jewish hoax The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The pamphlets are an incoherent mash-up of out-of context quotes and run-on sentences about a supposed global conspiracy by Jewish people.
“This kind of hate literature has no place on any of our campuses, ever,” said Dale Hall, Human Rights advisor to the college’s president. “As a college we work really hard, faculty, staff and students, to make sure that our college is welcoming to everyone and that people feel comfortable when they’re at our college. Hate literature should not, and will not, be tolerated at our college.”
According to Stacey Andrews, GBC’s manager of public safety and security, this marks the eighth time since 2012 that anti-Jewish and anti-Islamic pamphlets have been reported to campus security.
In 2012 there were two reported incidents of the pamphlets at the St. James campus. In 2014 there was one case at Casa Loma campus two at Waterfront campus. In the first two months of 2015 they have already been spotted once at Waterfront and twice at Casa Loma.
“We investigate each of these reports and bring in Toronto Police Services,” said Andrews in an email. “One arrest was made in 2012 of an individual who had distributed this type of offensive material not only in George Brown but also other businesses in the area.”
According to the 2013-14 Annual Report from GBC’s diversity, equity and human rights services, disability was the grounds for 49 per cent of human rights complaints at the college, followed by race at 26 per cent, while creed or religion made up 5 per cent.
In 2013 the Toronto Police’s hate crimes unit recorded 41 occurrences of hate crimes against the Jewish community, the most of any group, at 31 per cent. The LGBTQ community was the second most targeted group at 18 per cent, black people were victims of hate crimes 17 per cent of the time followed by the Muslim community at eight per cent. The hate crimes unit’s annual report notes these numbers may not be a true reflection due to underreporting by some groups.
“If anyone finds literature like this, which is hate literature, on any campus what they should do is go immediately to security and our office so they can be removed and we can check if the police should be informed,” said Hall.
