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A MAJOR VICTORY AGAINST HATE CRIMES: BLACK MAN BEATEN AND STABBED BY TWO SKIN HEADS IN MONTREAL AWARDED $50,000 IN DAMAGES BY HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION


A Black male who was gravely beaten and stabbed by two neo-Nazi skin heads in Montreal in June 2002 has won a major victory before the Quebec Human Rights Commission.

In June 2002, Mr. Evens Marseille, then 26 years old, went to La Brasserie Champlain in Montreal’s East end for a drink with friends. He was intercepted by a group of skin heads, including Daniel Laverdière and Rémi Chabot, to whom he had expressed his objection to their wearing of Nazi symbols two weeks earlier. Both Chabot and Laverdière taunted him with the “N” word; then Chabot punched Mr. Marseille, while Laverdière stabbed him in the stomach, causing a 5-inch cut that could have been fatal. As they were running away, the aggressors made a Nazi salute while Mr. Marseille fell to the ground.

Thanks to extensive investigative work by the police, especially detective Thierry Peano of the Montreal Police Service (whose testimony in court on the hate tatoos on both men’s bodies helped confirm their white supremacist views), and formal input from one of Canada’s leading hate crime experts, Dr. Karen Mock of Toronto, the Court sentenced Laverdière to 4 years in prison; Chabot was given a conditional sentence of one year to be served at home and two years of probation. The Court took into account the hate motivation of the crime to impose a stiff sentence, as prescribed by s. 718(2) of the Criminal Code.

On behalf of Mr. Marseille, CRARR filed a complaint of civil rights violation against both aggressors in June 2003, claiming $40,000 in moral damages; $40,000 in punitive damages; mandatory anti-hate behavioral modification training for both offenders; $20,000 to be invested in a community-based hate crime prevention program and a public apology to Mr. Marseille and to the Black community as a whole.

In its decision dated August 1st, 2006, the Commission claims $40,000 in moral damages and $10,000 in punitive damages from both men, to be paid by August 30, 2006, failing which the case will be brought to the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal.

“I am very happy with the Commission’s decision, even though it took three years and the damages are less than what CRARR claims for me,” said Mr. Marseille. “I have a message for all neo-Nazis and white supremacists: if you commit a hate crime, you will pay a high price,” he added.

According to CRARR’s Executive Director, Fo Niemi, the Commission’s decision comes at the right time as there have been very disturbing reports of hate-motivated assaults of Black men in Quebec City last month and growing tensions in race and intercommunity relations in Montreal as a result of world events.

“World and domestic events in the last couple of years have led to numerous acts of hate and racism, the most serious being the firebombing of the United Talmud Torahs School in Saint-Laurent, yet many police services and justice institutions in Quebec do not even have a formal policy and procedure on hate crimes,” he said.

“We will work hard with communities vulnerable because of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation; the police; justice officials and others to prevent hate crime, help bring hate criminals to justice and obtain major compensation for victims, as we have done in Mr. Marseille's case,” Mr. Niemi concluded.

CRARR and Mr. Marseille were supported at the press conference by representatives of the Canadian Jewish Congress (Quebec Region) and the Muslim Council of Montreal.

One of CRARR's cases involving a South Asian couple who was assaulted because of race, will be heard by the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal on September 22, 2006. The Commission is seeking $28,000 in damages for the couple in that case.