BACKGROUND
Joanna Berry is a Canadian immigration and refugee lawyer in Ontario, Canada. On October 2, two Niagara Police Officers, one of them a sergeant detective, paid her a visit to her home. They told her they were there on behalf of the Ottawa Police Department because of her “personal social media.” They begin to tell her that “10 lawyers who are of the Jewish faith” have filed a complaint with the police about her social media. As you can tell from the video, Joanna Berry, is outraged by the visit and clearly distraught. I reached out to the Niagara Regional Police for comment but they did not respond to my inquiry. I spoke with Joanna Berry also and she gave OTL Media permission to publish the video. She told us that she wants Canadians to see it and for the video to be a warning.
“This is very Orwellian”
On The Line Media is run by Samira Mohyeddin, a multi-award-winning journalist, documentary maker, and producer at CBC Radio One’s The Current.
I personally found the part where they tell her to not contact certain people. Which people? It’s never mentioned in the video. Is she just not supposed to say anything on social media again? How is that a reasonable response?
Now, if she was being blocked and creating new accounts to harass people, that would be more reasonable. Or if she was actually convicted of a crime. But until then, the police should just have to learn the difficult fact of life that people may not agree without any laws being broken.
It’s pretty clear from what they’re saying that it was her comments targeting people that were the problem, not posts about Israel. She doesn’t even deny it, she’s just pissed off they complained to the police that she was harassing them.
The single biggest reason I don’t think anything she did was actionable is that the likely people who are complaining are lawyers. If they thought they had a clear case, they would have sent a C&D or filed a harassment suit, especially with Canada’s less stringent requirements. If she was contacting individuals, they can block her. It seems pretty clear none of these things happened, or the police would have been more forceful. So at best we’re wasting police resources, at worst having the government engage in intimidation when no crimes were committed.