Halifax police forced to re-open investigation in a sexual assault case after Anonymous exposes the identity of the alleged culprit.
The online hacktivist collective Anonymous managed to force Halifax Regional Municipality police into reopening the investigation of an alleged sexual assault case involving an 18-year-old girl who was attacked by a fellow student on Halloween night at a Dalhousie University frat house in Halifax Nova Scotia, Canada.
The case was already closed by the time this video was posted because as per the Halifax police the victim did not want to proceed with the case.
However, after the hacktivist group Anonymous Halifax posted a video in which a guy Fawkes mask man revealed the name, pictures and phone number of the alleged perpetrator, the case came into the limelight again.
The video went viral instantly and garnered attention from everywhere making people notice the blatant mismanagement of Halifax police in this case. However, YouTube deleted the video “because its content violated their Terms of Service” while it’s still available on Facebook.
#OpDalRapes#OpDalRapes
#YouTubePlease download and Re-post before Facebook removes it .
Remove it once , Expect it to be re-posted 100 times .
Posted by Halifax Nova Scotia Anonymous on Monday, November 9, 2015
Anonymous claims the alleged rapist is a fellow student who goes by the name of Chris Apollo Toulany and after the claims, the police department had no other choice but to re-open the case.
In an exclusive conversation with one of the representatives of Anonymous Halifax, we asked some questions about the video. Here’s what they replied:
Q: How did you know about the sexual assault?
A: We received a message in our inbox from the mother of the victim asking for help.
Q: When do you plan to expose the name of those behind the assault and will you make public the name of the victim?
A: The rapist is exposed in the video. We linked his father in the downed Youtube video. We will not expose the family more. The police are now doing their job! Thanks to the video and public pressure.
Q: If the police get lazy on the case do you plan for a cyber attack?
A: We are in daily contact with family, we know what the police will do next, they are slow but have protocol to follow, if they are not diligent in this case, we will drop all websites and possibly others… ( Police have until Monday to press charges against rapist.)
A message for Anonymous Halifax:
“We want the world to know, we do not look for victims, when the police fail to act victims come to us. We knew the police would not press charges as we were told that by the mother initially. Police said " Without victim co-operation , no charges !! So we blast him so other girls in Halifax know who the monsters are in the schools they attend!
We are the same hive who has been there for Rehtaeh Parsons family and we will support this family the same way! We support victims of sexual assault, it is never there fault and we are sick of the police victimizing the victim ! They know she was raped, they know she was in hospital after the violent attack, they got a partial rape kit....... We will help clean the streets of halifax by exposing the predators amongst us, no matter who likes it !!! We speak the truth so we do not fear repercussions !!! We have instilled confidence in victims in Halifax by giving them the support to name there attackers and know there is a "world " of support !! We are that support , We are all Anonymous.”
Meanwhile, Anonymous is vowing to get justice for the victim, Lauren Leal, an official spokesperson of Halifax police is not happy with the hacktivist group about uploading the video online.
Lean criticized Anonymous for accusing and revealing the identity of a person without any proof.
The police dubbed this video as “irresponsible” as Lean stated:
“There’s always a risk if something hasn’t been investigated, hasn’t been tested in court, you could have the wrong person. It’s dangerous and it’s just so irresponsible,” according to CBC.
This is not the first time when Anonymous has played their role in bringing a rape case to the limelight. In the past, the hacktivist group shutdown Delhi police website against the shocking gang rape of an Indian girl.
Stay tuned, there’s more to come.