Romana Didulo salutes in a photograph on her Telegram web page. (Antihate.ca/Telegram)
The sovereign citizen motion is increasing quickly, and might now be present in at the least 26 nations.
The motion is anti-government in nature, and its followers consider they’re immune from the legal guidelines of their authorities. Additionally they have a proclivity for violence, as demonstrated by a variety of high-profile incidents, together with an armed standoff in Massachusetts in July 2021.
Police work within the space of an hours-long standoff with a gaggle of armed males that partially shut down a significant freeway in in Wakefield, Mass., in July 2021.
(AP Photograph/Michael Dwyer)
As a behavioural scientist and researcher of this motion, I’ve been monitoring Romana Didulo, a conspiracy influencer based mostly in British Columbia, who has proclaimed herself “Queen of Canada,” “commander-in-chief,” “Head of State and Authorities” and “president and nationwide Indigenous chief of the Kingdom of Canada.”
Just lately, Didulo has promoted herself to “Queen of the World.”
‘Queen of Canada’ excursions the nation
She excursions Canada in a leisure automobile, accompanied by an entourage. They maintain “meet and greets” the place Didulo speaks formally. These are recorded and posted on a number of channels on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app.
Didulo has almost 66,000 followers, often known as “I AMs.” They’re at the moment elevating funds to buy a brand new $65,000 RV for his or her queen.
Didulo is a sovereign citizen of a special selection. She espouses a dogma comprised of a combination of QAnon conspiracy theories, pseudo-legal sovereign-citizen beliefs and new age spirituality.
She tells her followers of her supernatural talents. She claims she will change into invisible by “cloaking” herself. This energy just isn’t uncommon for beings of her race, she says. She just isn’t of this Earth. She is a member of a extremely superior, alien race — an Arcturian, an alien being with particular celestial powers.
They possess “med beds.” Med beds, in keeping with Didulo, are superior therapeutic chambers that remedy medical illnesses, regrow limbs and organs, reverse ageing and might even make one immortal.
She guarantees full entry to those beds, full with their miracles, to all of her followers. Telegram posts recommend that lots of her followers are fervently awaiting her promised expertise, presumably delaying professional medical care.
A follower asks Didula a query about Med beds on her Telegram web page.
Fantastical tales
Didulo’s speeches are crammed with fantastical tales, together with how she grew to become the reigning monarch of Canada. She claims the Chinese language navy had clandestinely invaded secret, underground tunnels that criss-cross Canada. With nice issue, she commanded her forces and cleared the tunnels of the Chinese language communists.
She additionally claims to have entry to the billions of {dollars} saved on the Vatican. She claims to be a “form shifter” who can assume any bodily look she chooses. The “U.S. commander-in-chief” has assigned Didulo to finish the struggle in Ukraine by appearing because the “mediator” between United States and Russia. She claimed not too long ago that Russian President Vladimir Putin, an in depth good friend, had personally gifted her an autographed watch.
It’s tempting to take Didulo calmly, however she just isn’t an innocuous determine. She has robust affect over her many followers. Most not too long ago, she has “decreed” that in Canada, all utilities are free, taxes are elective and all money owed have been cleaned. In response, some followers have stopped paying their payments, have had their utilities shut off and misplaced their properties.
Didulo followers ask for assistance on her Telegram web page.
Writer supplied
Anti-vaxxer
Final 12 months, she instructed her followers to ship “cease-and-desist” letters to high school and health-care officers concerned in COVID-19 testing, vaccines or masking efforts.
Didulo believes that anybody who acquired the COVID-19 vaccine has had their DNA restructured and is slowly, however inevitably, turning right into a controllable robotic. She does, nonetheless, provide a remedy that requires listening each day to sounds at sure designated frequencies.
In 2021, she was detained for allegedly encouraging her followers to “shoot to kill” anybody concerned in vaccinating younger folks in opposition to COVID-19, including that the “merchants” — or traitors — will face a navy tribunal punishable by “fireplace squad or hanging.”
Certainly one of her followers was subsequently arrested after posting on-line threats aimed toward his daughter’s college.
Folks wait to get their youngsters vaccinated at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic in Montréal in November 2021. T.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
Threatens violence
Didulo appears to have a vindictive streak. She brags about being a dictator. Anybody complaining that her decrees are ineffective will likely be banned from her Telegram pages. Ex-followers report that she has threatened to shoot them or “cling them …from navy helicopters” and hover them “above a volcano or business crocodile farms…”
She generally refers to herself within the third individual, typically proclaiming her significance. She says she renamed town of Victoria “Queen Romana Metropolis” and Prince Edward Island to “Province of Queen Romana.”
Didulo is deceiving her followers. Her decrees are hurting them. Nothing she suggests is authorized or true. Her followers are damage, however they don’t seem to be innocent. They’re drawn to her due to greed. They need one thing for nothing. She guarantees them free cash, no payments, no taxes and all they must do is consider.
In actuality, they’re making an attempt to steal fuel, electrical energy, water and to chorus from repaying the cash they’ve borrowed from banks. As they see it, they’re entitled to free cash and utilities. They need fuel with out paying for it. They need to cease paying the mortgage firm, however nonetheless maintain onto their properties.
For folks motivated by greed, her philosophies and teachings provide a justification for thievery. All they must do is consider that the actual chief of Canada and the world is a shape-shifting alien, a starseed from Arcturia.
Like most followers of conspiracy theorists espousing outlandish falsehoods, Didulo’s disciples will study the onerous approach that they’ve been duped. Within the meantime, they will trigger severe real-world issues, and even terror, for his or her fellow law-abiding residents. That’s why Didulo’s rise should not be ignored.
Her techniques and edicts are nonsense with no foundation in actuality. They don’t work and can by no means work. They aren’t authorized, and there are not any loopholes that excuse folks from being good, accountable residents.
Christine Sarteschi doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or organisation that may profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their tutorial appointment.
