A man in Ottawa, Canada's capital, has been accused of having connections to the Atomwaffen Division, a global neo-Nazi terrorist organization.
According to Canada's federal police, 26-year-old Patrick Gordon Macdonald is charged with terrorism and spreading hate speech.
According to the RCMP, this is the first time both charges have been brought in Canada against a person accused of advocating a violent far-right ideology.
In 2021, Canada added the Atomwaffen Division to its list of terrorist organizations.
Mr. Macdonald is accused of taking part in, producing, and disseminating three videos that promoted the ideology of Atomwaffen Division.
On Wednesday, he must appear in court in Ottawa.
The RCMP announced in a statement that a second man was also detained and could be charged at a later time.
The ideology of accelerationism, which holds that society is inherently unstable and that they should work toward a revolutionary collapse of the system, is shared by Atomwaffen and many other white nationalist organizations.
The Atomwaffen Division, established in the US in 2013, "calls for acts of violence against racial, religious, and ethnic groups, as well as informants, police, and bureaucrats, to prompt the collapse of society," according to the Canadian federal government.
It has branches in the US, the UK, Germany, and Canada. Members have also committed violent acts at public rallies, including the one in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, the location of a deadly white nationalist rally.
The investigation, which started in April 2020, resulted in the arrests.
A 19-year-old was detained by the RCMP in the province of Ontario in 2022 after submitting an online application to join the Atomwaffen Division.
The founder of the Atomwaffen Division, Brandon Russell, 27, is accused of plotting to attack power plants near Baltimore in the US.
He and his co-defendant, 34-year-old Sarah Clendaniel, were taken into custody prior to the alleged attack. Both have entered a not-guilty plea.
