Quebec protesters use of Nazi symbols to mock police draws Jewish condemnation

An attempt by protesting Quebec students to mock police with a Nazi salute has fallen flat.

The province's federation of university students has been forced to apologize for some protesters throwing up the stiff-arm salute and calling police officers "SS" after angry Jewish groups condemned them.

"We think it was an error in judgment that they used that sign," federation president Martine Desjardins told CBC News, adding it does not "represent the values of Quebec and Canada."

The use of Nazi symbols, including swastikas on anti-police pamphlets, was apparently aimed at highlighting protesters' allegations of police brutality in dealing with demonstrations that have filled Montreal streets since February.

Thousands of students and their supporters have held regular marches, some of which degenerated into violence, to pressure Premier Jean Charest's Liberal government into cancelling a series of post-secondary tuition fee hikes over the next few years.

Protesters tried to use last weekend's Formula One auto race in Montreal to highlight their demands and have promised to be visible during the upcoming Montreal Jazz Festival and Just for Laughs comedy festival.

[Related: 'Manufestation' during Grand Prix backfires on protesters]

Critics said disrupting high-profile events simply drives away tourists and the dollars they bring into the economy that can help fund education.

But it was quickly clear the protesters' Nazi references were a step too far.

B'nai Brith Canada issued a statement Tuesday asking them to stop.

"We condemn, in the strongest of terms, this inexcusable display of hate by Quebec student protesters that has outraged the Jewish community and demonstrated just how low the level of public debate has fallen on the streets of Montreal," Frank Dimant of B'nai Brith wrote in the statement, Digital Journal reported.

"The actions of these protesters, whether for the purposes of deriding Montreal police or drawing attention to their cause, defile the memory of the Holocaust and remind us just how quickly anti-Semitism and the manifestations of hate can venture their way into our public discourse."

Montreal has a sizable Jewish community, about 93,000 people.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said using Nazi symbols betrays a historical ignorance, CBC News said.

All in all, it seems to have been a bad week for mockery in Quebec.

People are criticizing an artistic parody of a historical painting that shows a dead Charest lying at the feet of opposition politician Amir Khadir, who's shown brandishing a gun The Canadian Press reported.

The image, found by police in a pamphlet in Khadir's home, riffs on an 1830 painting by Eugene Delacroix entitled Liberty Guiding The People, on a theme from the French Revolution.

Charest's Liberals lost one of two Quebec provincial byelections Tuesday, surrendering the riding of Argenteuil, just north of Montreal, to the Parti Quebecois. It had been a Liberal stronghold since mid-1960s. They retained the Montreal-area riding of Lafontaine.

The governing Liberals, who are being hammered for passing a draconian law to limit the tuition protests, must face the voters within the next year.