The Toronto Police Service’s hate crime unit said on Saturday that Muhammad Anas Sial, 33, of Toronto, now faces a charge of “wilful promotion of hatred” in addition to that of “public incitement of hatred,” with which he was charged earlier in the year.
Sial is accused of being part of what the police department described as a “group of pro-Palestinian protestors,” which marched on March 15 “across Bathurst Street towards a group of pro-Israeli protestors.”
On April 2, the police department said that Sial allegedly brought “several hate propaganda signs to the protest,” approached pro-Israel demonstrators and “shouted inappropriate comments” and carried a “hate propaganda sign.”
That day, the department’s hate crime unit executed a search warrant at Sial’s home and a storage locker, and Sial was located and arrested, the department stated. It said on April 2 that it applied to the office of the attorney general to bring the charge of “wilful promotion of hatred.”
The latter charge was added on May 20, the department said on Saturday.
If a defendant is convicted of hate crime charges, the “judge will take into consideration hate as an aggravating factor when imposing a sentence,” the department said.
“Willful promotion of hatred and advocating genocide are hate propaganda (hate speech) offences which require the attorney general’s consent to lay charges,” the department said. “These charges are often laid at a later time.”
