MONTREAL — A taxi driver is seeking $5,000 from the city of Montreal because he opposes a bylaw that prohibits him from displaying personal mementos in his car.

Arieh Perecowicz says the Montreal Taxi Bureau rule is “discriminatory” and violates his freedom of expression guaranteed by the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. He earlier filed a complaint with the Quebec Human Right Commission.

Perecowicz, who has driven a cab for 42 years, has been fined a total of $764 since December 2006 for having a picture of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Schneerson, two mezuzot, family photos, a Remembrance Day poppy and a Canadian flag in his taxi.

He is also asking Montreal Municipal Court to delay ruling on the four fines he is contesting until the Human Rights Commission looks at his complaint.

The bylaw, adopted in 2003, prohibits any “object or inscription that is not required for the taxi to be in service.”

In his complaint to the Human Rights Commission, he says: “The objects in my vehicle do not in any way diminish the rights of any passenger and do not interfere with the proper operation of my taxi.”

Last fall, Perecowicz expressed his concerns that his rights were being infringed upon before the Bouchard-Taylor commission on the reasonable accommodation of religious minorities, when the hearings were held in St. Hyacinthe.