Eve Torres, who claimed that the Notre Dame fire was Allah’s wrath over France’s burqa ban, is busy now making a travesty of her apology by claiming victim status: “Many hateful messages targeted the former QS candidate after her comment. ‘It did not stop. People had never seen so much backlash,’ she indicated, adding that for many years she has received hateful messages and ‘real threats.’”
Can she produce any of these threats? Has she ever gone to police?
“I acknowledged my mistake. Getting criticism, people being offended or angered, people expressing themselves, people criticizing, it’s understandable. Nobody in Quebec should fear for her safety or her life because she expresses an opinion, a different point of view.”
What she is trying to do here is stop all criticism of her remarks about Notre Dame by claiming that she is the real victim. It’s the same strategy the Left is using to defend Ilhan Omar: they’re claiming, without any foundation, that criticism of Omar is incitement to violence against her, and hence all such criticism must be silenced.
“Notre-Dame de Paris: Eve Torres apologizes for her comments,” translated from “Notre-Dame de Paris: Eve Torres s’excuse pour ses commentaires,” by Béatrice Roy-Brunet, Le Journal de Montréal, April 18, 2019:
The former Québec solidaire candidate Eve Torres has formally apologized for her “joke” in poor taste after the fire at the Notre-Dame cathedral at the beginning of the week.
“I will not talk about my statement that has really hurt many people but once more I offer them my sincere apologies,” Ms. Torres said during a press conference under police protection.
Ms. Torres, a Muslim, made a comment linking the fire at Notre-Dame in Paris to Bill 21 that was introduced by the Legault government regarding religious symbols worn by public sector employees. “[…] When you prevent others from wearing religious symbols, you anger our ‘Imaginary Friend,’ and you can see the result,” she wrote on social networks.
She added that if she were [Quebec Premier] François Legault, she “would have firefighters sleep in the basilica on Notre-Dame Street [in Montreal].”
“Apparently, somebody started retweeting this on more radical social networks and after that everybody had a field day,” she said.
Later, Ms. Torres withdrew her comment and pointed out that it was a joke. “It was too late but it was the first thing to do.”
[Québec solidaire leader] Manon Massé also distanced herself from the comment published by her party’s candidate in Mont-Royal-Outremont in the last [provincial] election.
Eve Torres indicated that she understands “the extent of her responsibility.” “From this experience, I will remember how important the use of words is in the public space. We all have a responsibility to maintain social cohesion, particularly those of us who are public personalities.”
Hateful messages
Many hateful messages targeted the former QS candidate after her comment. “It did not stop. People had never seen so much backlash,” she indicated, adding that for many years she has received hateful messages and “real threats.”
“I acknowledged my mistake. Getting criticism, people being offended or angered, people expressing themselves, people criticizing, it’s understandable,” she explained.
“Nobody in Quebec should fear for her safety or her life because she expresses an opinion, a different point of view.”