MONTREAL — A much feared showdown between anti-Islamic demonstrators and counter-protesters in Montreal’s Little Maghreb never came to be.
PEGIDA, Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, was planning to launch its first march in North America at 4 p.m. at a commercial centre in the neighbourhood of Villeray-Park Extension, with a counter-demonstration organized by No One Is Illegal-Montreal set to begin a half-hour earlier in the same area.
READ MORE: Controversial German anti-Islam group to protest in Montreal
While counter-protesters showed up in the hundreds, waving banners and chanting “No fascists in our neighbourhoods,” PEGIDA supporters were reportedly scarce.
Global’s Billy Shields was at the scene live-tweeting the event and reported a few tense moments, before police declared that PEGIDA’s anti-Islam protest was being cancelled by its organizers.
Anti-PEGIDA protesters declared victory shortly thereafter and the event turned into a celebration of multiculturalism.
Jaggi Singh, spokesperson for No One is Illegall told Global News that the protest was as much a show of opposition to a racist movement as it was a show of support for the people living in Little Maghreb.
“That people who oppose racism, who oppose fascism, are here to show our opposition. But also show our solidarity with the people in the neighbourhood.”
Elaine Legault Roy echoed the sentiment, saying she attended the event “to show some support to the Muslim community in Montreal, to show that racist protests don’t have a place in Montreal.”
While Montreal police had been bracing for violent confrontations between the two groups, only one PEGIDA protester was briefly detained for his own safety and no arrests were made.
Comments