If the eyes of Quebecers are turned towards the pro-Palestine camp set up on the campus of McGill University, in the heart of downtown Montreal, it is far from being a unique case. Other groups of tents have sprung up elsewhere in Canada and, above all, many on the grounds of universities in the United States. If these protest camps have similar objectives, they have not been treated in the same way by the university authorities nor by the police: some continue peacefully, while in other places, Striking images show the intervention of the riot police. Explanations and overview.
In Montreal, since Saturday, colorful tents have been added over the days to the campus lawn. Despite the request made Tuesday by McGill University to the Montreal City Police Service (SPVM), it had not yet intervened Thursday afternoon, although its police officers had a significant presence there for the first time since the erection of the camp.
Tent camps have also taken root in other provinces.
They were erected Monday at the University of Ottawa as well as at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver. The movement of support did not stop there: on Wednesday, two other British Columbia campuses followed suit, and on Wednesday, students pitched their tents at Western University in London, Ontario. Then on Thursday, those at the University of Toronto defied management’s warnings that the camps would not be tolerated: they in turn set up a protest camp.
Generally speaking, those who are part of it denounce the deadly bombings which have taken place in Gaza since October 7, and the treatment which they consider inhumane of the Palestinians stuck in the enclave. The protesters also have more specific demands, directed at the educational institutions they occupy: for example, they demand that they cut their ties and end their investments in companies with financial interests in Israel or that provide military armament to the Hebrew State.
Until now, encampments have remained in place in Canadian cities, a contrast with images from the United States which show riot police arriving on campuses to arrest numerous students and tear down tents.
A first difference between the two countries is the fact that the American camps preceded those on Canadian soil. The one erected first at Columbia University, in New York, dates from mid-April. Tensions and negotiations between demonstrators and management have been going on there for longer — and patience is wearing thin.
Another distinction is that protesters at some American universities have not only occupied green spaces, but also university buildings.
Thus, the police intervened this week on the campus of Columbia University, after demonstrators occupied Hamilton Hall. They entered by force by breaking a window. The University then ruled that the demonstrators were harming its proper functioning, in addition to having vandalized its property. The president of the University, Minouche Shafik, seems to have considered that the occupation of the building was the straw that broke the camel’s back: “The events of last night (Tuesday) left us no choice” , he wrote to the New York police (NYPD). She arrested 109 people there according to New York Times. The campus has since been a “crime scene,” the University writes on its website.
Demonstrators also occupied a university building at Fordham University in New York and another at Humboldt University in California, where authorities also deplored vandalism. However, protesters were arrested elsewhere without occupying a building, including at the University of Arizona.
Other distinctions are necessary. The high-profile police intervention Tuesday at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) was not initially intended to dismantle the pro-Gaza encampment or arrest the demonstrators. The police moved when masked counter-protesters attacked those who denounced the situation in Gaza. The next day, however, they proceeded to dismantle the camp.
Other educational institutions have instead used diplomacy: Brown University in Rhode Island agreed with the demonstrators to dismantle their encampment in exchange for a vote on a possible “divestment” from “companies that make possible and profit from the genocide in Gaza.”
with Agence France-Presse