Montreal, Québec – Newly surfaced materials from a chat room called Montreal Storm have exposed a group of neo-nazis affiliated with the website Daily Stormer. The chats have also exposed the identity of ‘Zeiger’, a man who described himself as “the #2 writer” for the neo-nazi hate site, and is now known to be Montreal resident Gabriel Sohier-Chaput. ‘Zeiger’ would announce and host neo-Nazi gatherings at both his home on Rue Fabre in Montreal, as well as pubs and bars around the city.

Records from Discord, a group chat tool favored by internet-based ‘alt-right’ neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, have been provided to Unicorn Riot by antifascists in Montreal and are now available on our DiscordLeaks platform.

After the Montreal Gazette reported the chat records in a series of stories, national Canadian media picked up the news. The Gazette’s editorial board added that “exposing neo-Nazi activity is essential“, comparing Sohier-Chaput to mosque shooter Alexandre Bissonnette (who attacked a Quebec City mosque in January 2017, killing six) and Toronto’s alleged misogynist ‘incel’ van attacker Alek Minassian, accused of murdering ten people on April 23. The Montreal Gazette also released a story specifically about the Montreal Storm Discord chats.

In another recent example of fascists attempting to raise their public profile in Montreal, someone waved a swastika flag from a condo tower near Mayday celebrations on Tuesday.

Montreal’s mayor Valérie Plante says there is a police investigation into Sohier-Chaput and his group, and Inspector Ian Lafrenière of the city police communications and media relations division confirmed to the Gazette that the service’s hate crimes unit is looking into ‘Zeiger’.

The Discord logs from ‘Montreal Storm’ provided to Unicorn Riot begin on August 12, 2016, just before 11AM GMT. As Zeiger, Sohier-Chaput begins trying to charm the other fascists, bragging about Daily Stormer’s supposed readership and saying he’s “been a nazi for a few years now.” They discuss trying to set up more meetings in the Montreal area.

On August 29th, 2016, he mentions The Right Stuff fascist podcast network: “TRS standard pool party for montreal will be this sunday evening in an apartment building in the plateau mont-royal.” On September 4, 2016, ‘Zeiger’ wrote, “we had 11 people tonight” and “a representative from a Toronto group.” On Sept 15 he added, “we’re combined with the TRS pool party. so everytime there is a standard poolparty, everyone is invited” which are “just meetings, but organized on the TRS forum (therightstuff.biz, the #2 alt-right website)”. Albo-HAMMERBRO asks if they know the ‘Alt-right Montreal’ group on Facebook. Zeiger confirms it is “TRS pool party FB” and “I’m in it, and so are many people in this chat.”

Sohier-Chaput reassured the paranoid Albo-HAMMERBRO that “the group has strong connections to both DS and TRS..and besides, if you can’t trust me, who can you trust?” He went on to say “we’re not looking for media coverage at this point” which is why the group was using cover names like pool parties for meetings, part of a leadup for wider organization: “me and the more high-agency goys are going to form a core soon, establish structure, and start adding people to that.” While the group vents against minorities Sohier-Chaput says “we have to get rid of rights, and instead have duties and privileges awarded for doing those duties.” Sohier-Chaput’s group also called itself the “Arm and Hammer Brothers”, with “Arm” standing for “Alt-Right Montreal.” Their group has also served as a hub for the Canadian chapter of the European white supremacist “Generation Identity” movement which is credited with inspiring the American alt-right.

He also bragged about making a new banner on Daily Stormer saying “the pokemon banner is part of the campaign to troll the media.” This was part of a deception tactic according to Sohier-Chaput: “no one sane could say ‘those guys are evil nazis’ – it’ll just look like a joke. but die hard liberals will be like ‘nazis are trying to brainwash kids into loving hitler!!!'” ‘Zeiger’ described making hoax posts on the Daily Stormer in attempts to get media out to pick on the posts up as authentic, which he said was part of a tactic “to discredit the media and desensitize the public to the alt right” and “create a vast wave of publicity” for themselves.

‘Zeiger’ AKA Gabriel Sohier-Chaput elaborated on how some journalists would fall for Daily Stormer hoaxes, whereas others would not. “The smarter journalists understood this,” he posted in Montreal Storm. “They didn’t fall for the bait. That’s why we’re aiming for local newspapers first.” He then described how getting a hoax published in the media, then exposing it as a hoax, would help the Daily Stormer market neo-Nazi ideology to their younger target audiences. “If this succeeds, every 10-25 year old will instantly think “the alt-right is where the fun stuff is happening.”

Zeiger said the media hoax plan was being executed by “me and Andrew [Anglin]. Of course, plenty of storymers are probably distributing the flyers in real life too by now, as they reported. but I don’t expect that to have a major, immediate impact.”

Gabriel Sohier-Chaput would go on to be involved in Unite The Right in Charlottesville, present both at the violent torch rally the night before, and the street violence that erupted in an around Emancipation Park on August 12. ‘Zeiger’ was present in the ‘Charlottesville 2.0’ Discord chat server that was used by Jason Kessler and Eli Mosley to organize Unite The Right. In the hours after the neo-Nazi rally had been dispersed, he wrote in the Charlottesville chat that he had lost some members of his Montreal contingent and was looking for them. “We’ve lost two guys who don’t have cell phones,” he wrote on the evening of August 12. “If you meet Chris or Vincent from Montreal notify us of their location.”

A video posted by antifascists who took credit for exposing Zeiger explains his involvement as a neo-Nazi leader crafting movement strategy. The video also details Sohier-Chaput’s involvment in various white supremacist podcasts and event such as Charlottesville.

Gabriel Sohier-Chaput’s future in Montreal is unclear, as his neighborhood and city are currently plastered with fliers listing his personal information and outing him as a neo-Nazi propagandist.

CLICK HERE to browse and search the leaked ‘Montreal Storm’ Discord chat logs.

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