Briefly:Surrey’s Mircea Iulian Pripoae pleads guilty to uttering threats as the Crown stays a charge of public incitement of hatred.
Bob Mackin
A 34-year-old Surrey man was sentenced Oct. 2 in Vancouver Provincial Court to 30 days of house arrest and one-year on probation after an antisemitic incident last fall.
Inside Vancouver Provincial Court (Provincial Court of B.C.)
Before Judge David St. Pierre, Mircea Iulian Pripoae pleaded guilty to uttering threats. The Crown stayed a charge of public incitement of hatred.
On Oct. 22, 2023, Pripoae approached two people who were affixing posters of people kidnapped by Hamas to a wall in the 4200-block of Main Street in Vancouver. Pripoae said, among other things, Jews should “be wiped off the Earth” and “death to Israel,” and scrawled a swastika on a poster.
St. Pierre said that Pripoae had consumed alcohol and made poor decisions on where to express “strong-held feelings about the issues that are occurring halfway around the world in Gaza.”
“Clearly, Mr. Pripoae had been feeling some heightened, emotional feelings about the loss of life that had been occurring in Gaza, and anybody is well within their rights to criticize, to protest policies of any government, any nation in the world if they have an issue with the policies,” St. Pierre said.
However, Pripoae “went much further” by making threats of harm against an identifiable group in society.
“These kind of incidents, they eat away at the safety and the confidence that all people have, or should have, in Canada,” St. Pierre said.
Part of the incident was recorded on a smartphone. A statement from one of the victims said that they no longer feel safe in Vancouver to display a Star of David necklace while in public.
“Less than 80 years after the Holocaust, I experienced firsthand a call to again commit genocide against the Jews right here in my home city,” said the victim impact statement. “Throughout my primary and secondary education in Jewish schools, I learned how, too quickly, antisemitism can spiral out of control in society.”
Pripoae apologized in court to the Jewish community, offered to write a letter of apology to the victims and said his behaviour that night was “foreign and non-characteristic of who I normally am as a person.”
St. Pierre said it was to Pripoae’s credit that he pleaded guilty, expressed remorse and regret and offered to write the apology letter. Pripoae was born in Romania, grew up in Calgary and has a history of mental health issues, which St. Pierre acknowledged, but said did not lead directly to the incident.
St. Pierre accepted the joint Crown and defence submission for a 30-day conditional sentence to be served under house arrest. Once a sentencing supervisor approves, Pripoae will be free to leave his residence during hours of employment and for any medical emergency. He must not consume alcohol or drugs, possess any weapons or contact the victims. He must also perform 20 hours of community service work and serve a year on probation.
The incident was one of the 33 reports of antisemitism to the Vancouver Police Department in 2023 after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Incidents have continued into 2024. The most recent was Sept. 29 near an “emergency rally” at the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) to mourn Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated in a Sept. 27 Israeli air strike on Beirut. Canada added Hezbollah to its terrorist list in 2002.
Vancouver Police said they arrested a youth after a 34-year-old woman was knocked to the ground, assaulted and called antisemitic slurs. The woman needed treatment in hospital for her injuries.
The promoter of the Sept. 29 protest, Samidoun, is organizing a downtown rally on Oct. 7, the anniversary of what it calls the Al-Aqsa Flood, the name Hamas gave to its terrorist attack on Israel during last year’s Simchat Torah Jewish holiday.
Vancouver Police arrested Samidoun’s international director Charlotte Kates in April under suspicion of inciting or promoting hatred. Kates was released on conditions to avoid protests and public gatherings. She is due in court on Oct. 8. Charges have yet to be announced.
At an April 26 rally outside VAG, Kates called Hamas “heroic and brave” and urged followers to support it and other groups that are fighting to end the state of Israel. In August, Kates traveled to Tehran to receive an award from the government of Iran, which finances and arms Hamas and Hezbollah.
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