Toronto (July 6, 2023) - Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center welcomes the news that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have charged a notorious Canadian neo-Nazi with both hate propaganda and terrorism. This is the first time that these two charges have been applied together, marking an important recognition of the role that hate propaganda plays in inciting terror.

Atomwaffen Division is a listed terror entity in Canada that is linked to at least five murders in the United States, including the 19-year-old university student Blaze Bernstein. The international network of cells has advocated for using violence and terror to facilitate the collapse of society. Although Atomwaffen Division is currently fragmented, its propaganda remains influential in far-right spaces.

Holocaust education and memorial institutions often stress that what starts with words, doesn't usually end with words. The decision to charge this individual with both hate propaganda and terrorism is an important step amidst ongoing attempts to incite violence against vulnerable communities. The propaganda put out by the charged individual are inseparable from the wider goals of Atomwaffen Division, which explicitly include sowing terror and targeting vulnerable communities in pursuit of societal collapse.