definition of 'nazi' back in spotlight at montreal hate-speech trial
defence lawyer hélène poussard resumes her line of argument in the case against gabriel sohier chaput, who wrote hundreds of articles for a neo-nazi website.
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gabriel sohier chaput at the montreal courthouse in february 2022. he is charged with wilfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group.
john mahoney
/
montreal gazette
a quebec court judge will decide in january whether an article posted by a montrealer on a neo-nazi website constitutes hate speech.
gabriel sohier chaput, 36, is charged with the wilful promotion of hatred because of an article he wrote for a neo-nazi website called the daily stormer. the article was posted on the site in 2017, warning it would be “ the year of action. ” sohier chaput denies he wrote the second half of the article.
he also posted between 800 and 1,000 articles on the same site, but they are not part of what sohier chaput is charged with.
manlio del negro heard evidence in march, but the trial was put on hold in july while defence lawyer hélène poussard argued the court was presented with no evidence nazis were entirely responsible for the holocaust.
the attorney reiterated friday she is not trying to deny the holocaust occurred, or question the number of people killed.
in his closing statements, on july 8, crown prosecutor patrick lafrenière argued del negro could take for granted that when sohier chaput referred to “ non-stop nazism everywhere ” in his writings, he was referring to persecution and violence against jews, because it is well known nazis perpetrated the holocaust.
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del negro suggested lafrenière made an error in not calling a witness to properly explain the concept of “ nazism, ” and the judge heard more arguments on the matter on friday.
in july, poussard argued that while sohier chaput’s articles may have been repugnant, he had the right to write under the canadian charter of rights and freedoms.
on friday, she continued her argument that del negro has no evidence of what happened during the holocaust.
“it merits having an expert come in to explain it to us,” poussard said of how the prosecutor used the word nazism in his closing arguments.
“to me, it is very simple to say that it was the nazis who killed 6 million jews. for me, it is much more than that, or it requires an expert to say otherwise,” poussard said.
she also argued that larousse, the french dictionary, defines nazis as an “abbreviation of german national socialists.”
“that is what larousse says,” poussard said, before quoting from other dictionaries and encyclopedias that have similar brief definitions.
“if the court doesn’t know the fact in question, it can find it on its own from sources that are accessible and indisputable.,” poussard said.
“there were many jews who were exterminated by bullets, so by the german army. when the war was over, those soldiers were asked why they did it, and we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of jews who were killed by the german army. and the german army said: ‘we were following orders. we are not nazis. we were obeying orders.'”
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“so i should understand that you are contesting the number of deaths during the holocaust?” the judge asked.
“i want it to be understood well — i am contesting nothing. i am talking about judicial knowledge. i want that to be very clear,” poussard replied.
the judge also asked poussard to give him her opinion of the daily stormer.
“it is a flaming rag where there are all kinds of things to get a reaction from anybody, be it racist, be it women, be it homosexuals who are mocked, or mexicans, or jews, or blacks or anybody,” the attorney said after a long pause.
“it is not a newspaper that is there to support peace and harmony in a society. do you see it that way?” the judge asked.
“absolutely,” poussard said.
“good. so you are of the same opinion as the court on that subject,” del negro said.
the judge is scheduled to deliver his decision on jan. 23.
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