On March 24, 2026, Toronto Police Services (TPS) announced the establishment of two new entities: a new Counter-Terrorism Security Unit and Task Force Guardian—the latter involving stationing officers with rifles around the city of Toronto.
Make no mistake: this is a declaration of war against the people.
Al-Ahrar Palestinian Prisoner Support condemns in the strongest terms this act of normalizing and gearing up for domestic warfare against the people of Toronto and we, too, oppose all police expansion, particularly that which serves to repress anti-imperialist organizing across our city.
Palestine Solidarity Repression in Toronto
TPS’s Counter-Terrorism Security Unit and Task Force Guardian have come to join the already-existing $19m+ Project Resolute that continues to criminalize Torontonians for resisting imperialism in West Asia. Project Resolute, which secured funding in November 2023, increased Toronto police’s ability to harass, intimidate, arrest, brutalize, and surveil activists across the city.
TPS, of course, justifies the creation of their new unit and task force as a response to so-called “heightened tensions” and “global conflicts” citing “firearm discharges targeting synagogues and the U.S. Consulate in Toronto.” Noticeably absent from their statement is any mention of Zionists and TPS officers alike targeting Palestine solidarity protestors or Muslim places of worship.
This is no surprise given the existence of Canadian policing forces is to oppress and control, rather than serve and protect as they claim.
The addition of two more local policing entities that specifically target organizing against imperialism in Palestine, Iran, and elsewhere in the region is TPS’ attempt to deepen repression against us. They intend to use fear tactics to silence us about the atrocities committed by the NATO-U.S.-Zionist alliance, but we will never kneel to colonial and imperial dictates.
“Terrorism” and Counter-Terrorism in so-called Canada
Manufacturing consent for state repression against so-called “terrorism” is not new to Canada. The term “terrorism” has been used in a post-9/11 world almost exclusively to vilify Palestinian, Arabs, and Muslims to justify treating them with suspicion. Toronto police chose this term deliberately.
On the seven new “terrorist” designations from January 2026, Al-Ahrar and several other members of the Masar Badil: The Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement noted that,
[Terrorist designations are] a clear acceleration of existing War on Terror tactics that have been employed by Western regimes over the last several decades. While some of these designations target Palestinian Resistance factions specifically— the very first foreign terrorist designation made by the U.S. was the P.L.O.— many of them have also targeted solidarity organizations and charities. This broad range of criminalization is a consistent and prolonged attempt to deter Palestinians and their allies from engaging in any form of support for the Palestinian cause, whether it be raising funds for Palestinian charities, attempting to break the siege on Gaza, or support for armed resistance against Zionist occupation.
The conclusion to draw… is that all individuals and organizations who offer any form of support for the Palestinian cause are at risk of being criminalized. This criminalization is arbitrary fear-mongering that no one is safe from, no matter how much an individual or group may work to remain within the legal parameters of Western regimes. As such, the Palestine solidarity movement in the West, if it is to survive, must take the position of unequivocal rejection of Western states’ terms of legality and assert that our moral compass exists outside of the realm of what Western Zionist regimes deem legal. Our movement must be guided by the demands of the Palestinian people and their resistance leadership.”
TPS’s new counter-terrorism unit also comes at the heels of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network being invoked at the Al-Quds Day’s injunction hearing. One day before the demonstration for Toronto’s annual Al-Quds Day march, the Ford government filed a court injunction to attempt to cancel it. One of the arguments used was accusing Al-Quds Day organizers of working with Samidoun to then force organizers to disavow Samidoun in order to prove their innocence in the eyes of the state.
Though the injunction did not pass and the Al-Quds Day demonstration went forth as planned, we must not overlook Zionist attempts to utilize terrorism designations to strike fear into organizers of Palestine solidarity events, risking a divide in the movement and suppressing Palestine solidarity.
As Al-Ahrar has previously written, “imperialist and settler-colonial states like Canada and the U.S. want us to be scared, isolate and condemn the proscribed, dilute our political line, and narrow our tactics to what is socially and legally acceptable. This is their very hope and expectation whenever a new list of SDGTs is released.”
Al-Ahrar calls on all community members and organizations to express their condemnation of TPS’ expanded efforts to silence Palestine solidarity and reject the use of the term “terrorism” to fear-monger our movement into compliance.
Long live the Resistance!
Long live Palestine!
Abolish the terror list!
