The Orchard obtained more than 200 pages of heavily redacted internal communications about the protest camp, which was dismantled in the early hours of May 11, through FOIP.
In the early hours of May 11, 2024, Edmonton police officers dressed in riot gear forcefully dismantled a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Alberta just two days after students, faculty and broader community members pitched tents in the Quad to protest what a growing chorus of leading experts in Holocaust and genocide studies have characterized as genocide.
In a community update issued after the encampment was torn down, UAlberta president Bill Flanagan defended the heavy-handed response, arguing the protest posed a threat to campus “safety.”
But documents obtained through a FOIP request call Flanagan’s assessment into question.
In internal communications, campus security repeatedly referred to the encampment, which also included MacEwan University students from the other side of the North Saskatchewan River, as “peaceful”—and in one instance, “extremely peaceful”—throughout the short duration of its existence.
Security officials re-assured encampment organizers, even after trespass notices were issued, that they were at no risk of eviction if the status quo in the Quad was maintained.
The heavily redacted documents provide little indication of why the university leadership changed its mind and decided to call in the cops to put an end to the encampment.
“I don't think it's a wild stretch to think there are outside forces at play here,” Nour Salhi, a MacEwan journalism student who became one of the public faces of the UAlberta encampment, told the Orchard after reviewing the FOIP documents, referring to pro-Israel groups and the provincial government. (more...)
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