Bangor Metropolis Council silences public feedback following hate-filled rant
Bangor metropolis councilors silenced an unknown particular person after he delivered antisemitic, racist and homophobic statements through Zoom in the course of the public remark portion of Monday’s metropolis council assembly.
The particular person, who used a number of Zoom accounts to proceed his hateful message, falsely linked the terrorist assaults on September 11, 2001, to a Jewish conspiracy, amongst different fictitious and malicious claims. The interruption got here on the twenty second anniversary of the terrorist assaults that killed practically 3,000 individuals in New York Metropolis, Washington, D.C. and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Three councilors — Cara Pelletier, Dina Yacoubagha and Clare Davitt — condemned the statements after the offender was rapidly silenced.
“Town council won’t entertain any kind of hate speech,” Councilor Cara Pelletier mentioned. “Whether or not you’re on-line, in particular person or sending flyers to metropolis council members, you’re barking up the flawed tree. That’s not what this council stands for, so take it someplace else.”
Davitt applauded Pelletier’s assertion and mentioned the town council might disagree on any variety of issues, but it surely stands unified in its intolerance of racism, antisemitism, homophobia or some other hateful feedback concentrating on minorities.
“Final evening’s cowardly caller who spewed antisemetic hate is an instance of how, whereas we are able to say there’s no place for hate in Maine, we all know it’s right here,” Davitt mentioned in a press release Tuesday. “It’s incumbent upon elected officers and others in management positions to talk out to sentence it whether or not it’s anti-semetisim, homophobia, or white nationalism.”
Yacoubagha mentioned September 11 must be an event by which the neighborhood comes collectively to recollect those that died within the 2001 terrorist assaults relatively than being a platform for hatred that tears individuals aside.
That is the primary time a Bangor public assembly has fallen sufferer to “Zoom-bombing” — when public assembly visitors disrupt or take management of the assembly to share hate speech or pornographic photographs. The difficulty turned extra widespread when the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent gathering restrictions compelled governing our bodies to conduct all public conferences on-line.
Bangor councilors had been additionally mailed flyers containing white nationalist messages in April, but it surely’s unknown who despatched the supplies, in accordance with Davitt
Bangor isn’t the one neighborhood in Maine that has been subjected to hateful flyers and feedback in public conferences concentrating on minorities.
Additionally on Monday night, Hallowell’s metropolis council assembly was interrupted by individuals yelling anti-semitic, homophobic and racial slurs, in accordance with Hallowell Mayor Maureen AuCoin.
In Portland, residents awoke on Monday to find antisemitic flyers containing conspiracy theories that tie Jewish individuals to the September 11 assaults, had been dropped on porches all through the town.
Portland and Augusta have additionally been the house of rallies held by neo-Nazi teams in current months. One such group is organising a coaching facility close to Lincoln.
