Jun 2025: "RCMP says it will collect info on possible war crimes in Gaza war"

[The Bread Guy]

Put this here to focus more on the RCMP angle than the fighting of the Gaza fight angle elsewhere.

Wonder how busy the RCMP's "secure online portal available in French, English, Hebrew and Arabic" is these days?

Sounds like it could get a touch messy, but fingers crossed, and good luck to the poor Mounties who have to sort through this shit to find some justice against true war criminals.

This from The Canadian Press ...

RCMP says it will collect info on possible war crimes in Gaza war

OTTAWA - The RCMP says it will "proactively" collect information about possible war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the Israel-Hamas armed conflict.

www.thecanadianpressnews.ca

... and this from the RCMP Info-machine ....

... and this from a Jewish advocacy group

CIJA Statement in response to the RCMP Clarification on its Structural Investigation in the Israel-Hamas War

www.cija.ca

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Put this here to focus more on the RCMP angle than the fighting of the Gaza fight angle elsewhere.

Wonder how busy the RCMP's "secure online portal available in French, English, Hebrew and Arabic" is these days?

Sounds like it could get a touch messy, but fingers crossed, and good luck to the poor Mounties who have to sort through this shit to find some justice against true war criminals.

This from The Canadian Press ...

RCMP says it will collect info on possible war crimes in Gaza war

OTTAWA - The RCMP says it will "proactively" collect information about possible war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the Israel-Hamas armed conflict.

www.thecanadianpressnews.ca

... and this from the RCMP Info-machine ....
View attachment 93694
... and this from a Jewish advocacy group

CIJA Statement in response to the RCMP Clarification on its Structural Investigation in the Israel-Hamas War

www.cija.ca

View attachment 93695

Am I reading this right? The RCMP is investigating Israeli-Canadians for war crimes?

 

[The Bread Guy]

Am I reading this right? The RCMP is investigating Israeli-Canadians for war crimes?

I don't think it's quite that straightforward (but what government speak is?).

To me, it's more like the RCMP saying "we're sorta/kinda doing a sort of a background information check where they gather information that might be useful later - from open sources - especially about possible war crimes (we like to call it a "structural investigation"), and we're also open to accepting tips in English/French/Hebrew/Arabic - we're working on a secure portal for that."

The Jewish group seems to be saying, "hey, folks, best tread lightly re: even suggesting prosecuting people for doing their duty defending Israel."

One man's "structural investigation" is another man's "prepare to march the guilty bastards in," I guess, given the divisiveness/volatility of the issue.

 

[brihard]

Am I reading this right? The RCMP is investigating Israeli-Canadians for war crimes?

No, not really.

I don't think it's quite that straightforward (but what government speak is?).

To me, it's more like the RCMP saying "we're sorta/kinda doing a sort of a background information check where they gather information that might be useful later - from open sources - especially about possible war crimes (we like to call it a "structural investigation"), and we're also open to accepting tips in English/French/Hebrew/Arabic."

The Jewish group seems to be saying, "hey, folks, best tread lightly re: even suggesting prosecuting people for doing their duty defending Israel."

One man's "structural investigation" is another man's "prepare to march the guilty bastards in," I guess, given the divisiveness/volatility of the issue.

Somewhat closer…

These ‘structural investigations’ became a thing a few years back in the international space for crimes against humanity and war crimes (CANWC). With these conflicts you get diasporas with both victims and perpetrators scattering all over the world.

CAHWC are pretty close to universal jurisdiction. Different countries handle it differently, but by and large such offences are in everyone’s interest and many countries have extended domestic law to cover it.

In Canada, the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act allows for domestic criminal prosecution for such offences if:

• The accused is Canadian,
• The victim is Canadian, or;
• The accused ends up physically present in Canada.

These structural investigations are multinational info collection and sharing. For instance, a survivor of the Yazidi genocide comes to Canada as a refugee and is interviewed by RCMP. They identify where they were and what happened, and they identify a suspect and witnesses. Germany identifies that they have that suspect there on an immigration claim. Denmark and the UK both identify that they have witnesses on the ground too. The Canadian victim statement and the Danish and UK victim statements could be fed to Germany to prosecute their suspect.

So, it’s not a particularized investigation into specific individual offences. It’s basically collecting the info from victims in what happened and sharing it into international CAHWC efforts to allow countries to identify potential particularized investigations where they would have jurisdiction to prosecute, and to run with it. It helps get info early both chronologically and in a victim’s journey though various processes including judicial, reconciliation, and academic. The old way of doing things was often victims being identified a decade or more later, often having been interviewed a half dozen times and having their witness statements badly tainted. It makes the uphill battle to prosecute CAHWC slightly less steep.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Thx for more of the rest of the story @brihard

 

[brihard]

Thx for more of the rest of the story @brihard

No problem. First one of these I heard of was for the Yazidi genocide, and then the invasion of Ukraine, so this isn’t a totally new thing. It makes sense; individual countries trying to go it alone on CAHWC stuff largely just doesn’t work.