The Ukrainian Canadian Congress is urging Parliament to outlaw public displays of the Soviet hammer and sickle, arguing the Communist emblem should be treated as a hate symbol alongside Nazi and terrorist insignia already targeted in federal legislation.In submissions to the Senate human rights committee, the Congress said the symbol continues to represent both historic atrocities committed under the Soviet Union and modern-day Russian aggression against Ukraine.“Symbols of the Soviet Union’s murderous past are today instrumentalized by Russia to excuse its murderous present,” the organization wrote. “The Communist hammer and sickle is thus both a symbol of past Soviet Russian crimes and current Russian crimes against humanity.”Blacklock's Reporter said the request comes as senators review Bill C-9, legislation that would amend the Criminal Code to ban the public display of symbols tied to listed extremist or terrorist entities.The bill would criminalize the willful promotion of hatred through symbols associated with groups including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Russian Imperial Movement and the Tamil Tigers, along with Nazi imagery such as the swastika and SS insignia.The Ukrainian Canadian Congress said it was disappointed the hammer and sickle was excluded from the legislation despite what it described as the Soviet regime’s long history of mass repression and genocide..“The Communist hammer and sickle is the symbol of the hateful ideology whose proponents and adherents are responsible for the crimes of the Soviet regime including the Holodomor famine and genocide in Ukraine, the genocide of the Crimean Tatar people, the Great Terror, the Gulag labour camps and the oppression and subjugation of dozens of nations across four continents,” the group told senators.The organization noted the hammer and sickle is already banned in countries including Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and South Korea.In Canada, however, the symbol remains legal and continues to be used by federally registered Communist and Marxist-Leninist political parties.Bill C-9 passed the House of Commons on March 25 and is now before the Senate. Violations involving banned symbols could carry penalties of up to two years in prison.The legislation includes exemptions for legitimate uses related to journalism, religion, education or art.Justice Minister Sean Fraser said when introducing the bill last September that the legislation was intended to target the deliberate promotion of hate rather than impose a blanket prohibition on controversial imagery.“This is not a blanket ban on particular symbols,” Fraser said. “It is a new offence that deals with the willful promotion of hate through the use of those symbols.”.Pressure for tougher laws intensified following anti-Israel protests that erupted after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.B’nai Brith Canada and other advocacy groups have documented an increase in antisemitic incidents and the appearance of extremist symbols at demonstrations across the country.During Senate hearings last year, Deidre Butler of Carleton University testified Jewish students and women had faced threats and intimidation on Canadian campuses.“Student groups have painted red triangles on buildings, a symbol used by Hamas to mark a target for assassination, and then posted photos of them on social media to amplify this intimidation,” Butler told senators.
