LogFAQs > #963082750

...it was a 'joke'

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/montreal-man-accused-of-spreading-hate-against-jews-on-far-right-blog-says-it-was-a-joke-1.5800691

Morgan Lowrie The Canadian Press Staff Contact
4 minutes
A Montreal man accused of fomenting hate against Jews testified in his own defence on Tuesday, arguing that the blog post at the heart of his trial was a "joke" designed to upset people who are politically correct.
Gabriel Sohier-Chaput, who went by the online moniker Zeiger, is facing one count of wilful promotion of hatred in connection with a post from January 2017 on the far-right website Daily Stormer.
Sohier-Chaput, 35, told the court Tuesday he wrote or did research on between 800 and 1,000 articles for Daily Stormer beginning in 2016, including part of the blog post for which he is facing trial.
"We need to make sure no SJW (social justice warrior) or Jew can remain safely untriggered," the post read in part. "Non-stop Nazism, everywhere, until the very streets are flooded with the tears of our enemies."
Sohier-Chaput testified that he chose wording that was "exaggerated" and "poetic" in order to mock people who he felt were too sensitive and who branded those with whom they disagree as Nazis.
He said he felt Daily Stormer's mission was to "disarm the left" through irony, absurdity and humour, adding that a "rational" person would not take its content literally.
"Either they understand the joke and they laugh, or they find it terrible," Sohier-Chaput testified. "In that sense, the goal is to sap the politically correct by making extreme comments."
The blog post on the far-right website refers to a 2017 Global News article about Nazi posters showing up in New Westminster, B.C., and about a Holocaust survivor's reaction to