Dark Foreigner Arrest: The Role of Propaganda in Perpetuating the Violent Extreme Right
On 5 July 2023, Patrick Gordon Macdonald, aka “Dark Foreigner” was arrested in Ottawa, Canada. He’s facing three terrorism charges: participating in the activity of a terrorist group, facilitating terrorist activity, and the commission of an offence for a terrorist group (wilful promotion of hatred). This arrest was significant for several reasons: because his role in the group appears to have primarily been one relating to the creation of propaganda, and because arrests of ideologically-motivated violent extremists (IMVE) in Canada still lag behind those of religiously-motivated violent extremists. Read on to find out more about this case.
Updated 30 August 2023At the time of his arrest, Dark Foreigner was not a new name for those of us familiar with the IMVE landscape in Canada. Back in July of 2021, Vice News reporters identified him publicly. (I strongly recommend you read the Vice series on this - they’ve done incredible work!) They tracked Macdonald down following the art work that he did for the special fourth edition of Siege, popularizing the skull mask with neo-Nazis.