A new pro-Palestinian encampment has appeared in the Ville-Marie borough, in downtown Montreal.
Members of the “Divest for Palestine” collective released a statement on Saturday saying that participants had set up camp on Place Victoria, near the office of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), the manager of the provincial pension fund. .
The Montreal City Police Service (SPVM) confirmed that protesters began to barricade themselves on Place Victoria using construction materials around 1:20 p.m.
Agent Véronique Dubuc, spokesperson for the SPVM, reports that the police are monitoring the situation, but have not made any arrests.
Protesters say their encampment is modeled after those set up on university campuses in Canada and the United States. They ask the CDPQ to sever its ties with Israeli institutions which they accuse of being complicit in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
A pro-Palestinian encampment has occupied the lower area of McGill University’s downtown campus in Montreal since late April despite two requests for an injunction to have it removed – one by McGill students and another by the university itself. even.
McGill announced earlier this week that it was ending negotiations with pro-Palestinian protesters who demanded that the university disclose and sever its ties with Israel.
Elsewhere in the city, however, pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Quebec in Montreal dismantled their encampment after the university acceded to many of their demands, including disclosure of its annual investments and a ban on holding investments in companies profiting from arms manufacturing.
To watch on video