Wednesday, July 10, 2024

McGill shuts down Gaza camp, but cannot silence students

 

Canada Montreal McGill University student activism Palestine solidarity encampment Gaza genocide complicity divest boycott sanction police intransigence racism ethnic cleansing oppression colonialism imperialism repression shut down

Those running McGill University are deeply anti-Palestinian. Soon after Israel was reported to be responsible for upwards of 200,000 deaths in Gaza, the university hired a private security company to dismantle a camp opposing its horrors.

Early Wednesday morning the McGill administration hired private security firm SIRCO to dismantle an encampment calling for the university to cut ties with Israeli universities and companies assisting the slaughter in Gaza, which prestigious medical journal The Lancet says has likely caused 186,000 Palestinian deaths. Hundreds of police, including the provincial Sûreté du Québec, assisted the operation to remove the encampment on its lower field, which is unused, but well situated in downtown Montreal.

The security/police operation that shuttered all activity on the campus for the day violated the spirit of a May 15 Quebec Superior Court ruling rejecting McGill’s request for an emergency injunction to dismantle the encampment. McGill has an ongoing case before the courts against the encampment and a Laval university law professor told CBC they may have defied the law in suppressing the encampment.

Since the camp was set up April 27 the administration has effectively refused to negotiate with the students. Rather than consider the students’ position, McGill released a steady stream of malicious statements smearing internationalist, social justice, minded activists. They repeatedly suggested the encampment was violent or anti-Jewish or “an illegal occupation”. In a statement on Wednesday McGill President Deep Saini claimed, “This camp was not a peaceful protest. It was a heavily fortified focal point for intimidation and violence.”  (more...)

McGill shuts down Gaza camp, but cannot silence students


No comments:

Post a Comment