Tension escalated Monday around the encampment in support of Palestine erected on the grounds of McGill University, which has continued to grow since Saturday. Its dismantling by the police is now feared, but such action against a peaceful demonstration would go against the principles of academic freedom, in the opinion of professors met on site by The duty.
The movement, which calls on the university to stop investing in companies that supply equipment or services to the Israeli army and to cut all ties with Israeli academic institutions, has attracted students from several universities Montrealers in the last days. The camp, located near Sherbrooke Street, currently has more than 80 tents, three times more than at the start of this mobilization on Saturday.
“We are asking for a divestment from McGill and Concordia in the links they have in organizations that finance the genocide occurring in Gaza,” summarizes Ali, who was presented at the Duty Monday as the representative of this camp.
“We’re not going to leave”
Until now, this mobilization has gone off without a hitch, according to the demonstrators met in front of this encampment, surrounded by fences on which posters have been placed to denounce the scale of the deadly attacks carried out in Gaza. These have led to the deaths of 34,488 people, the majority civilians, according to the Ministry of Health in the region, controlled by Hamas, since the attacks carried out by the Islamist movement in Israel on October 7, which led to the death of 1,170 people, according to Israeli authorities.
Joined by The duty, the Montreal City Police Service (SPVM) has also confirmed that it has not made “any arrests” as part of this mobilization, which has not given rise to “any excess” so far. At the end of the morning, however, concern began to show on the faces of several demonstrators, who then blocked the entrance to the encampment with several planks of wood in fear of police intervention on the site. , McGill University having expressed its interest in seeing the tents erected on its land be dismantled.
“We are going to remove our tents when you fulfill our demands” and stop being “complicit” in financing the “genocide in Gaza,” said Ezra Rosen, a member of the Independent Jewish Voices organization and a student at the Concordia University, met on Monday very close to this encampment. By mid-afternoon, the crowd of students, professors and citizens who had gone to this site in support of this mobilization continued to grow.
“We don’t plan to leave. We will stay here as long as necessary,” insisted Ali, who indicated that the members of the camp have already planned what measures they intend to take if the police intervene to dismantle this camp. “We have students ready to form picket lines; we have students ready to be on the front lines to prevent police officers from arresting people and creating chaos on campus,” he noted.
Academic freedom
McGill University, for its part, affirmed Monday, in a press release, that the encampment present on the site of its campus in the city center contravenes “both the freedom to make one’s voice heard and the freedom to meet in a manner peaceful”. The establishment then indicated that it had opened an “investigation” after having “viewed video evidence of individuals exhibiting intimidating behavior and making blatantly anti-Semitic remarks, which is completely unacceptable on our campuses.”
“Every time McGill University raises the issue, either ambiguously or indirectly, of anti-Semitism, it is not capable of proving anything this evening,” replied Monday the professor of Islamic history at the Institute of Islamic Studies of McGill University Rula Jurdi Abisaab, who came to support the students mobilized on the grounds of the establishment. She then urged the establishment to make the videos in question public.
McGill University also indicated that it was in communication with the lawyers retained by the students of the establishment who occupy this camp in order to “discuss measures aimed at preserving security as well as the adoption of a relative timetable dismantling the tents. The establishment asserts, however, that the students refuse to continue the discussions and have not made proposals aimed at moving the dialogue forward.
“Instead, the demonstrators indicated that they intended to remain on campus for an indefinite period,” continues the establishment, which specifies that “the senior management of McGill University is currently meeting to discuss the next steps that she intends to undertake.” It was impossible to obtain an interview with a member of the establishment’s management on Monday.
“Unfortunately, I hear in this the possibility that there will be discussions with the police,” sighed law professor at McGill University Richard Janda, met in front of this encampment on Monday.
In recent days, large-scale mobilizations that have taken place in several American universities have been strongly repressed by the police. “I don’t see why we have to go in the direction of campuses in the United States where these clashes were terrible,” fears Mr. Janda, according to whom police intervention to dismantle the encampment at McGill University would go against of its “Policy on Academic Freedom on Campus”.
“It seems to me that it would be a contradiction to have both the proclamation that the campus is a place for the expression of ideas, but then to say: if the remarks offend, we will come with the police,” illustrates the professor. That’s why I’m here today. »