‘No room for hate:’ Peterborough police investigating spread of anti-Semitic flyers

Peterborough police say they are investigating after anti-Semitic flyers were distributed in the city over the weekend, following two similar incidents earlier this year.

The Peterborough Police Service say flyers distributed Saturday night and into early Sunday were found on 24 streets.

Chief Stuart Betts says the force is committed to ensuring public safety and that “there is no room for hate” in the community.

The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies says the flyers promoted false conspiracies about the Jewish community’s involvement in the pandemic and the slave trade.

Anti-Semitic flyers were previously found in Peterborough in May and in June.

A Statistics Canada report tracking hate crimes in 2020 found that the Peterborough census area, which includes the city, four townships and two First Nations, had a rate of 19.4 police-reported hate crimes per 100,000 population, the highest rate in the country.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 4, 2023.

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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.