Barred From Canada, Anti-Semitic Comic Dieudonne Performs in Montreal Via Video
Image by getty images
MONTREAL —After being barred from entering Canada, controversial French comic Dieudonne M’bala M’bala still managed to present a show in Montreal — via video link.
Some 600 tickets reportedly were bought up by loyal fans of the man convicted multiple times in France and Belgium for hate speech, anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, and defending terrorism.
They paid $40 a ticket to see the comedian on a big screen in an east-end reception hall on Monday.
Dieudonne’s last conviction was May 10 in France for using material that included accusations of Jewish involvement in the slave trade and deriding the Holocaust.
That was the same day the Canadian Border Services Agency informed him he had to take a flight back to France.
Still, promoter Louis Tall said Dieudonne’s show, called En Paix (In Peace), was all part of a sincere effort to rehabilitate his image.
“We are trying to promote something about peace, about love, not about racism and anti-Semitism,” CJAD radio quoted Tall as saying.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
