The Canadian state has once again attempted to criminalize solidarity with the Palestinian people under the guise of “counter-terrorism.” On April 15, 2025, Peel Regional Police arrested a 32-year-old Yemeni man, charging him for alleged threats. Then, 4 days later, the RCMP’s INSET counter-terrorism team arrested the same man again. This time, they claimed that he was planning to leave Canada to join AnsarAllah — the Yemeni Resistance group that the Canadian settler colony calls a “terrorist” group.
No additional charges were ever laid. Instead, Crown prosecutors sought to limit his movements through a “terrorism peace bond,” a kind of restraining order that can impose conditions on a person who isn’t alleged to have committed a crime. These court orders criminalize otherwise ordinary, legal activities, making it easier for the state to manufacture reasons to re-arrest and jail someone. To Al-Ahrar’s knowledge, this legal power has not been used in movement-related contexts since the Anti-Terrorism Act passed in 2015.
Uniquely, terrorism peace bonds also allow the state to hold a person in jail without criminal charges. This man was arbitrarily detained for almost a month before being released on extremely restrictive bail conditions, which included house arrest, an ankle monitor, and not using any devices with internet connectivity. Again, alleged violations of any of those conditions would lead to new criminal charges.
On July 17, 2025, the Crown retracted their “terrorism” allegations and the accompanying peace bond application, leaving only the previous threat charges. On that date, the man appeared in court from the Toronto East Detention Centre, where he’d ultimately spent a total of nearly 2 months. Like every other jail in Canada, the East is rife with inhumane conditions; prisoners are often locked down for hours or days at a time, sometimes packed in three-to-a-cell, and denied basic amenities like showers and phone access.
These drastic measures, in which all pretenses of civil liberties and due process are suspended, are typical of “counter-terrorism” operations. And moreover, they indicate an extremely concerning intensification in state repression. The state’s persecution campaign against this man takes place amidst a growing trend of violent arrests, police home invasions, and draconian bail conditions against the Palestine solidarity movement in Canada. By no coincidence, some of the most outrageous acts of state violence target Palestinians and other Arab peoples in the diaspora, particularly migrants who lack the protection of Canadian citizenship. Notable, too, are the charges of uttering threats: to the white supremacist state, any anti-colonial speech is a threat and therefore “criminal.”
People of conscience across this country must clearly identify and put an end to this trend of silencing Palestinian, Arab, and internationalist voices who speak out against Zionist colonialism. This uptick in state violence and repression is not an aberration; it is a long-term strategy to eradicate the growing strength of our anti-imperialist front.
Al-Ahrar Toronto extends our solidarity to this man and all others who remain steadfast in the face of criminalization. We also reaffirm international calls to abolish the so-called terror list that Canada and the rest of the imperialist West use to criminalize dissent. The “terror” list and allegations of “terrorism” are but a racist tool in the settler-colonial playbook — from Turtle Island to Palestine.
So long as Palestinian Resistance factions and the Axis of Resistance groups are listed and criminalized across the West, secondary listings of Palestinian solidarity organizations like that of the designations of Palestine Action, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network will continue to be the norm. Not only are those engaged in armed revolutionary struggle being criminalized, but so too are their supporters.
This new imperialist attack on so-called “terrorism” in Ontario is likely just the beginning of a new, intensified campaign against our movement. As censorship and other forms of repression deepen, we must continue to collectivize risk and embrace resistance by any means necessary.
Free, Free Palestine!
Glory to AnsarAllah!
Abolish the “Terror” List!
Long Live the Axis of Resistance!
Free All Political Prisoners!
