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La Meute, an extreme-right and anti-Islam group, held a protest in Quebec City on Sunday while hundreds staged a counter-protest.

La Meute urged its members not to give in to taunts and insults from counter-protesters and not to engage in physical altercations.

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Maxime Fiset, a reformed neo-Nazi who now works with Quebec’s Centre de prévention de la radicalization, encouraged everyone in attendance to keep the peace, saying violence would only encourage radicalization.

“When protests become disruptive, one of the groups are going to feel some kind of injustice,” Fiset said. “Whether or not there has been an actual injustice, they’ll feel that they are being treated unjustly, and that can fuel radicalization.”

When radical groups experience violence against them, victimization is something that recruiters often use, Fiset said.

“They’ll say things like, ‘See, these guys want to hurt you. They don’t want what’s best for you. We are unjustly treated, and we are right’,” Fiset said.