Sighting: Students walk past a bus shelter where pro-Palestinian posters were taped outside the University of Montreal metro station in Montreal, Tuesday, Nov., 14, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi
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Posters of Israel-Hamas conflict plastered in Montreal Metro stations
By:
Rachel Lau
CTVNewsMontreal.ca Digital Reporter
Updated Nov. 16, 2023 11:10 a.m. EST
Published Nov. 14, 2023 8:20 a.m. EST
The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) says it has asked Montreal police (SPVM) to investigate after posters bearing images of the Israel-Hamas conflict were plastered in several Metro stations.
According to the STM, the posters were found in at least a dozen stations on the green and blue lines, bearing the words "Genocide in Palestine, Canada complicit."
"Our security control team and the SPVM are investigating," confirmed Amélie Régis, a communications officer with the STM. "They are being taken down."
For its part, Montreal police says it started receiving 911 calls at 5 a.m. Tuesday from numerous people who noticed the posters on the exterior doors of the Metro stations.
The force says its Metro unit is investigating.
TENSIONS IN MONTREAL
This is just the latest in a string of events in Montreal related to the conflict overseas.
Sunday, thousands of people marched in downtown Montreal demanding a ceasefire after reports of deadly strikes in and around Gaza City's main hospital.
Thousands of residents were displaced and forced to flee south as Israel intensified its assault, causing the death toll in the strip to surpass 11,000, according to Gaza officials.
Also last week, two Jewish schools in the Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough, United Talmud Torahs of Montreal Inc. and Yeshiva Gedola, were targeted several times by gunfire.
Police say the investigation into the shootings at the schools has been transferred to its hate crime unit "because we consider this to be a hate incident," said Deputy Chief Vincent Richer.
Statistics gathered from Oct. 7 to Nov. 7 by Montreal police show there have been 73 hate crime incidents targeting Jewish communities in the city, as well as 25 targeting Arab-Muslim people since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
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