Operation Malaise

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Operation Malaise is a Canadian police investigation of an alleged pedophile ring. It included officers from the SQ and Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who were joined by about 150 local police to make the arrests. The original 13 were arrested in Montreal, Quebec City, Lévis, Trois-Rivières, St-Eustache and Mont St-Hilairets. One additional person was latter arrested and one or more individuals are still being sought. In addition to the arrests, the SQ said police were conducting searches in the homes of suspects, and computer equipment was being seized for analysis by the force’s Information Technology forensics department.[1] [2] [3] [4] The word Malaise (/məˈleɪz/ muh-LAZE) is defined as a feeling of general discomfort, uneasiness or pain, of being "out of sorts", often the first indication of an infection or other disease. [5]

On January 28, 2016, Police in Quebec arrested 13 people throughout Quebec and in Toronto, another suspect was arrested in February[6] and a 15th man turned himself in[7] when he learned he was wanted by the police. The defendants were described in the press as a Pedophile ring and were arrested on the trumped-up charge of "allegedly exchanging advice on ways to sexually abuse children without raising suspicion", simply for their association in real life and on Internet support forums as well as involvement in the founding of, Les Amis de Toutes les Minorités Sexuelles (LATMS), as a pretext to search their homes. Additional charges were brought after the suspects' homes were raided and searched and their electronic devices seized and searched. The men arrested appear to have been members of an, as yet, unnamed French Canadian support forum for boylovers and it is not known how many of the accused may have been connected to LATMS. [8] The charges range from possession of child pornography, distribution of child pornography, production of child pornography, and viewing child pornography, to having an unregistered firearm.[9] As a result, Les Amis de Toutes les Minorités Sexuelles, a non-profit organization, whose website offered services to pedophiles and other sexual minorities, a Quebec superior court judge ruled that it should not legally be allowed to operate in the province. This may have been the true motivation behind Operation Malaise. According to an inside sources, a "police infiltrator" entered the group for a period of three years prior to the arrests in order to gain their trust and may have used pressure and other professional infiltration tactics to encourage members to engage in illegal activities, such as viewing illegal pornographic images, over that period of time for the purpose of entrapment and their eventual arrest and the take-down of the organization know as LATMS..[10]

Judge David R. Collier reportedly stated in his judgment to revoke LATMS' non-profit and corporate status,

“It is clear that the main mission of the defendant (LATMS) is to defend the interests of pedophiles and other sexual deviants,” he said, “As well as promoting the idea that their sexual orientation is normal and worthy of respect,”[11] making it clear that his judgment was based on his own bias and not Canadian law or the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms [12].

The first line of the preamble of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states,

"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world."



Defendants

  1. Jonathan St-Pierre, 28, of Trois-Rivières.
  2. André Faivre, 67, of Montreal. President of LATMS [11]
  3. Jean Marc St-Hilaire, 66, of Saint-Eustache.
  4. Claude Paquette, 31, of Montreal.
  5. Patrick Charbonneau, 36, of Montreal.
  6. David Boucher, 31, of Montreal.
  7. Simon Brochu, 34, of Montreal.
  8. Francis Perron, 46, of Quebec City.
  9. Kenneth Jodoin, 40, of Montreal.
  10. Dave Turcotte, 40, of Saint-Hilaire-de-Dorset.
  11. Richard Lévesque
  12. Roger Lepage, 74, of Lévis.
  13. Didier Chételat, 27, of Montreal
  14. Vincent Rodrigue 39, who has no known address. (detained on unrelated charges).
  15. Jessy Giroux, 32, of Toronto [13]

Les Amis de Toutes les Minorités Sexuelles (LATMS)

LATMS Website

Les Amis de Toutes les Minorités Sexuelles was an organization which was registered in 2011 and had it's registration revoked in on or about February 18th, 2016 as a result of Operation Malaise and the arrest of it's president (André Faivre) and possibly other members of the organization. The basis of their arrest and the subsequent searches of their homes and computer equipment was that the men were allegedly exchanging advice on ways to sexually abuse children without raising suspicion, later further charges were brought after their arrest.

Mission statement from LATMS homepage (translation)

  1. Present, explain and disseminate to society and the appropriate media an inclusive vision of all sexual minorities based on the intimate experience of persons concerned and on an objective conception of the orientation of love or sexual desire.
  2. In compliance with Canadian law, but without however limiting their right to speak and their freedom of expression in accordance with the Quebec and Canadian human rights charters, play various roles of intermediaries, where anonymity is necessary, for individuals, groups or organizations belonging to any of these sexual minorities so that they can participate in the debate and achieve their legitimate objectives taking care however not to be or become what the spokesman or the representative of their claim, their claims or their struggles.
  3. Together, inform, animate and support people who want to discover and better understand the reality of sexual minorities and who wish to participate in research, reflections and debates on this subject.
  4. Available for the above purpose funds and other assets by means of public subscription; receive and manage for the same purposes donations, bequests and other contributions of the same kind, in cash and real estate and securities values.[14]

References

See also