A Canadian activist and author, who has been likened to Noam Chomsky, was arrested by police in Montreal, Canada, on Thursday for criticizing Israel and accusations of harassment from a pro-Israeli influencer.

Yves Engler has been a voracious critic of Israel and the Canadian military complex for over two decades, middleeasteye.net reported.

After Montreal police reached out to him about their plans to arrest Engler because of a complaint lodged against him by Zionist influencer Dahlia Kurtz, he took to social media to highlight the issue. While he admitted he had responded to Kurtz's "racist, violent, anti-Palestinian posts" on X, he said he had not harassed her. 

“I’ve never met Kurtz. Nor have I messaged or emailed her. Nor have I threatened her. I don’t even follow her on X (Twitter’s algorithm puts her posts in my feed).”

After Engler posted about his arrest and the allegations made against him, the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute organized an action campaign, and almost 3,200 people, by the time of publishing, had written to the Montreal police asking them to drop charges against Engler.

This appeared to result in further disciplinary charges for Engler. He wrote in another post that the police reached out to him with further charges for “harassing [them] for writing about the charges leveled against me” and asking him not to speak about his case.

The father of two was taken into custody and appeared before a judge on Thursday afternoon. 

Alex Tyrrell, party leader of the Green Party of Quebec, who accompanied Engler to the police station on Thursday, spoke to the Middle East Eye about Engler’s arrest.

“I think it’s a shocking attack on free expression and democratic rights and criticism of Israel in Canada - a country that’s supposed to be a free, democratic society. We’re supposed to speak out about a genocide," Tyrrel told MEE.

Tyrell says that Engler is one of the most outspoken people in Canada on the Israel-Palestine issue, and Kurtz's accusations formed the basis of his arrest.