A small victory in a long legal battle
Ticketed repeatedly by Montreal police while covering the province's strict curfew, Yanky Pollak managed to score a small victory in his ongoing legal fight.
Our journalist Yanky Pollak was back in Montreal again to face multiple hearings for several tickets he received while reporting on the ground during Quebec's curfew.
While the mainstream media wasn't there to show the truth about what was really going on in the streets of Montreal after curfew, Yanky was doing an incredible job by reporting the other side of this story.
For covering their enforcement of the curfew, the Montreal police tried to intimidate and silence our journalist by giving him many tickets.
Since he was an accredited journalist and had a legitimate reason to be out after curfew, the police tried to find other reasons to punish him; sometimes it was jaywalking tickets, sometimes it was failing to obey or other minor offences. All to try and stop him from doing his job.
In today's video, we see the busy day Yanky had as he was in and out of two different courts, one municipal, one criminal.
During the morning, his lawyer called for a Jordan ruling, a request to have the tickets tossed because they were older than 18 months.
Trial postponed on November 14th for Mister @Yanky_Pollak, 6 months from now.
— Alexandra Lavoie (@ThevoiceAlexa) April 4, 2023
But there is no certainty that on this date we will know the final verdict.
Stay tune for the report from today at https://t.co/RtWcy1NZIZ
In the afternoon, the municipal court delivered a verdict from a hearing back on January 16, where Yanky was found guilty for two jaywalking tickets as well as a failure to obey charge.
But he did score a victory when he was acquitted for having allegedly revved his engine of his rental car.
The Verdict of @Yanky_Pollak :
— Alexandra Lavoie (@ThevoiceAlexa) April 4, 2023
Jaywalking: Guilty
Jaywalking: Guilty
Failing to obey: Guilty
Revolving the engine: Acquit
Afterwards, Yanky had the day's last hearing about the use of his cellphone while driving, and the judge acquitted him again.
Hopefully this is a step towards a bigger victory, and helps create a precedent for journalists to stop being targeted by police — whether or not you agree with the outlet this person represents, Canada is still a country where freedom of the press exists.
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