A so-called “revolutionary” summer school began Monday afternoon at the pro-Palestinian encampment on the downtown campus of McGill University in Montreal.
The program, which includes lectures on Palestinian history and the resistance movement, will extend over the next four weeks.
Organizers call it “revolutionary education” and promise lessons in Arabic language and cultural crafts.
Federal and provincial politicians called for the camp to be dismantled after a summer program poster released last week showed an image of people holding automatic rifles.
“Enough is enough, it is hate speech and incitement to hatred pure and simple,” commented the federal Minister of Immigration, Marc Miller, on the social network X. The de-escalation at McGill has clearly failed. This must stop! »
For her part, the Minister of Higher Education of Quebec, Pascale Déry, declared that the poster is “a provocation, an explicit incitement to violence, even to indoctrination”.
Inspector David Shane, of the Montreal City Police Service (SPVM), told journalists Monday that the poster “is concerning because it presents the image of an assault rifle.” He added that the SPVM has opened an investigation and is being helped by the RCMP.
” They [la GRC] have expertise in terrorism, for example, so we just want to exchange and see good practices and how we can handle this issue,” he said at a press briefing.
Zaina Karim, a spokesperson for the program, says the photo is a historic image and that the organizers do not regret using it.
“It’s a historical image showing a colonized people reading about another colonized people. It’s a symbolism between education and struggle,” she argued.
She says about 50 to 80 people, mostly students, signed up for the first week of classes.
Mme Karim said organizers were surprised by the number of registrations and that they could open more places in the coming weeks.
“We are challenging the norms of normal academia. We want to teach things that are not normally taught. The main objective is to educate,” she explained in an interview.
In a press release sent Friday, McGill President Deep Saini announced that the university would increase security near the encampment. “This publication is extremely worrying. It has attracted international media attention, and many members of our community have contacted us to share their serious and legitimate concerns, which I share. »
In a press release sent Monday, the SPVM emphasizes that it “remains on the lookout for developments in the situation in order to ensure the protection and safety of all.”