Canada's director of public prosecutions threatens to discipline employees, including students, who signed pro-Palestine letters

 

Legal experts say a May 7 email to Public Prosecution Service of Canada employees in Ontario represents escalating state repression against lawyers who advocate for Palestine.

Employees at Canada’s public prosecution service, including summer and articling students, have been threatened with unspecified disciplinary action if they signed either of two pro-Palestine letters published last year, which the director of public prosecutions characterized as antisemitic and supportive of terrorism in emails exclusively obtained by The Orchard.

In the morning of May 7, Director of Public Prosecutions Kathleen Roussel sent an email addressed to all employees at the Public Prosecution Service of Canada’s (PPSC) Ontario Regional Office (ORO), calling the two letters “a matter of particular concern.”

By the time Roussel sent out another email with what she called the “correct version” at 2:05 p.m., the letters—written in October and November—were upgraded to “a matter of particularly immediate concern.”

“You will see that we wanted to give further information about how management would proceed in respect of persons who may or may not have signed the TMU letter [emphasis added],” Roussel explained at the beginning of the second email, referring to an Oct. 20 letter signed by about 70 students, many anonymously, at Toronto Metropolitan University’s (TMU) Lincoln Alexander Law School.  (more...)

Canada's director of public prosecutions threatens to discipline employees, including students, who signed pro-Palestine letters