Arrest warrant against an anti-vaccine activist for refusing to wear a mask in court

A judge issued an arrest warrant on Tuesday targeting health activist François Amalega Bitondo, because he refused to wear a mask inside when he had to stand trial for obstructing police work.

Rather, he stood on the sidewalk in front of the building of the municipal court of the City of Montreal. “I don’t want to go into the yard if I have to wear the mask for just one second,” he said in front. The duty. As he was not inside when his turn came, this prompted Judge Marc Alain to issue an arrest warrant.

“You cannot be inside the building or the courtroom without a mask. As you are not wearing a mask and have no medical condition, you are under arrest warrant, ”a security guard said officially to the 43-year-old.

He was due to stand trial in the morning for obstructing the work of the police, because of events that occurred on March 12 in a large-scale grocery store. According to what he told the To have to, he would have entered it a few times without a mask in the past. One day, an employee decided to call the police and he allegedly went outside. However, the man would have entered again without a mask while they were writing a ticket. François Amalega Bitondo is known to have organized stunts and anti-vaccine demonstrations in front of schools.

The former math teacher, who arrived at the court at 9:30 a.m., nevertheless spent more than an hour indoors, without a mask, waiting for his turn to come. He was accompanied by an elderly woman, who also did not wear a mask. A member of court staff then joined them and spent most of her time with a mask under her chin, despite being called to order by security.

Two security agents finally asked François Amalega Bitondo to wait outside. The man then started a direct on Instagram to film the intervention, considering himself the victim of an injustice. According to a security officer at the entrance, he lied to her, claiming to suffer from a medical condition to justify not wearing a mask inside. “I meant condition of conscience,” François Amalega Bitondo told him, when she confronted him on the subject with two other agents outside.

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