The once-burgeoning neo-Nazi fight club scene in Canada has gone remarkably quiet, since terrorism charges were laid on two of their leaders late last year.
The so-called “Active Clubs” are an international group of semi-autonomous neo-Nazi fight clubs who meet regularly to create propaganda and take part in martial arts training. The network is one of the fast growing neo-Nazi movements in the Western world and Canada was no different. For the last two years, the movement gathered momentum as it set up cells across the country, at its peak over 11 cells punctuated the Great White North.
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That momentum halted when, in December, a key leader, a young man named Kristoffer Nippak, was publicly identified by VICE News and a week later he was arrested and charged with participation in the activities of a terrorist group. Matthew Althorpe, another person connected to the active club network and international neo-Nazi scene, was charged alongside Nippak, and his charges include the creation of terrorist propaganda and facilitating terrorist activity. The charges arose partially from the pair’s time with Atomwaffen, an infamous neo-Nazi group connected to multiple murders that has been designated a terrorist group in Canada.
Sources confirmed to VICE News that Nippak was a key organizer of the Active Club scene in Canada and even traveled overseas to help organize clubs in Scandinavian countries. One source told VICE News, “This is his life, it’s all he does.”
Following Nippak’s arrest, the propaganda machine that was Active Club Canada effectively ceased its engines. The large overarching Telegram page which once pumped out propaganda featuring Canadian neo-Nazis doing push-ups or sloppy martial arts training is now dead. Those left in charge first changed its name from Active Club to “Canadian Lifestyle” before just deleting all the content.
Peter Smith, a journalist who covers extremism in Canada, told VICE News the group realizes its connections to a terrorist organization is probably not the best look.
“Since the arrests and the apparent exposure of their connections to Atomwaffen and terrorism there has been radio silence from the active club on their public channels,” said Smith. “It doesn’t mean that the group has dissolved but… it seems like their main goal is to put as much distance as they can between themselves and this issue.”
After the Canadian Active Club’s main page was deleted a desperate neo-Nazi hermit crabbed it in an attempt to drive people to join a racist forum they created. Stealing the name on December 20 they now shill links to their forum non-stop. The desperate racist’s gambit has thus far been a failure and their forum is a ghost town. It has less than 20 members and only the creator posts things.
If you have any information regarding neo-Nazi organizing or active clubs, we would love to hear from you. Please reach out to Mack Lamoureux via email at mack.lamoureux@vice.com. Ask for a signal number is the subject matter is sensitive.
Meanwhile, south of the border, clubs that are sprinkled across the United States are active as ever. The same goes for clubs overseas in France, Sweden, Estonia, and other European countries.
At its peak, the Canadian Active Club network boasted 11 cells across the country. The majority of them have either gone quiet or deleted their account entirely. Other groups like the GTA-based one Nippak was in have changed their name. One Quebec group kept the Active Club moniker and has been somewhat active following Nippak’s arrest but the closest thing to white nationalist propaganda they posted was a photo of a hand holding an Active Club sticker in a snow-covered forest.
A Hamiliton-based cell, which while not being a full-fledged AC group is affiliated with the network, still appears to be up and running. The group recently posted that they teamed up with the GTA-based group to ”train in hand-to-hand combat.” Sadly, there was a snowstorm and all the neo-Nazis got “terribly cold” that day, however.
There is no honor among thieves and even less among Nazis, so Nippak and Althorpe have received no public support from their racist comrades. The only time it was addressed in the Active Club network was when the small Quebec cells reshared a post from a racist hooligan account.
“Few guys from Active Club Canada have been arrested by (police) on fabricated political charges, we send our support to comrades across the seas,” it reads.
All this said, just because some names were changed and some Telegram pages closed, doesn’t mean those involved in the group have exited.
“I don’t think that we can count this group of individuals as out of the game to any degree,” said Smith. “While it is good that action is being taken against them and that it seemingly has hurt their ability to operate in public. I don’t think it’s the last we’ve heard of, if not the active club, everybody who’s involved with it.”
