Names of prominent far-right commentators spray-painted onto Plateau buildings
Tags appear days after reports that neo-Nazi blogger is based in Montreal and has been recruiting here
Graffiti that appears to laud prominent far-right and neo-Nazi commentators has appeared on buildings in the Plateau Mont-Royal borough.
The tags are of the names of the commentators, some with hearts and flowers beside them.
Richard Spencer is a white nationalist organizer and commentator who helped coin the term "alt right." He is known to have quoted from Nazi propaganda in speeches.
Alt-right graffiti appeared all along Laurier St. in Montreal this morning <a href="https://twitter.com/CBCMontreal?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CBCMontreal</a> <a href="https://t.co/aPHDl6a3U2">pic.twitter.com/aPHDl6a3U2</a>
—@vestevieJean-François Gariépy, originally from Quebec, is an online white nationalist personality, who supports ideas of white superiority and white "ethnostates."
The numbers 1488 are a code used by neo-Nazi sympathizers to signal their beliefs. They refer to a 14-word slogan from a murderous white supremacist, David Lane, who died in a U.S. prison in 2007 — and to the Nazi greeting, "Heil Hitler." (H being the eighth letter of the alphabet.)
They were painted were on the side of businesses and apartment buildings on Laurier Street between St-Denis Street and de Gaspé Avenue.
"It's not funny. It's actually very scary," said Zlatka Simic, one of a few passersby who actually knew who the tags were referring to.
A police spokesperson told CBC News he wasn't aware of the graffiti.
With files from CBC's Verity Stevenson