An anti-Iranian regime protester is calling out the Toronto Police Service for turning a blind eye to what he says is an assault against him witnessed by an officer.
Salman Sima, a former Iranian political prisoner and a regular on the Toronto protest circuit, and Daniel Bordman, a journalist with the National Telegraph, are accusing Toronto police of being unprofessional and ignoring targeted violence against them when they attended a Shiite Muslim procession in Toronto.
The Ashura march commemorated the death of Imam Husayn Ibn Ali, a warrior and the grandson of Muhammad, the founder of Islam.
Sima said he goes to the march every year to protest at the march because he believes the organizers are connected to the Islamic Regime in Iran and to protest the other attendees’ support for the dictatorship and its military.
Sima was walking alongside the protesters, holding a sign with photos of victims of the Iranian regime.
The other side of Sima’s sign said, “Fight for freedom in Iran.” Footage taken by Bordman shows increasing hostility towards Sima from members of the demonstration.
Sima and Bordman told True North that the attacks were due to Sima holding his sign and on Bordman for recording it. They each said the attacks happened in front of Toronto police, though no action was taken against the attackers.
“They assaulted us in front of (a police officer). With the stick of the flag (the marchers) targeted my head,” Sima told True North. “Two times they tried to grab (Bordman’s) phone, even some non-Iranian immigrants, Pakistani or Afghanistani immigrants told us to leave. Who are (they) to say to the people on the sidewalk where they can and cannot stand?”
The Toronto Police Service did not respond to True North’s request to comment.
“There’s a less than 10% chance that no police witnessed what happened, and that’s being generous to the cops,” Bordman said. “One of the (marchers) who attacked me and threw punches came right up in Salman’s face and goes with a sort of forward head butting thing, very clearly assault type behaviour, and this is again, in front of four or five cops at least watching this.”
Bordman said after the attack, a Toronto police officer treated them as though they were the problem.
In one video, Bordman tells the police, “We were assaulted. It is on video.”
An officer shouts at them, “I don’t care because you are disturbing the peace.”
“We’ve been telling you to leave,” the officer continued, his voice raising. “Leave. Leave. Leave. Go somewhere else.”
Bordman questioned how showing the victims of state violence at the hands of a government that is a stated enemy of Canada and holding a camera as a journalist at a public event could be a breach of the peace.
“If saying that we oppose a country whose leaders say they want to destroy Canada is somehow a breach of the peace, what does it say about the (marchers)?” Bordman said. “The logic you would have to use to say we broke the peace with those signs is that it is a pro-IRGC mob, and…they are anti-Canada.”
Bordman said the interaction was made difficult because the officer in charge didn’t speak English well. The situation was only defused when other police arrived and confirmed Bordman and Sima were not breaking any laws.
Sima said the incident reminded him of the country he fled.
“I don’t want to lose my freedom here again,” Sima said. “I see how Shia Islamists backed by IRGC and the regime, supported by communist lefties, have ruined my beautiful country in Iran. I don’t want the same thing to happen to my second country, Canada.”