Once again the events and circumstances surrounding the Sept. 9 riots took centre stage at last week’s meeting of the Concordia Council on Student Life (CCSL).
At the Nov. 1 meeting, university security was questioned about measures that were taken to secure the Hall Building on Sept. 9 in anticipation of the arrival of former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
CSU councillor Adam Slater and Sameer Zuberi, CSU VP finance, both wanted answers from Concordia’s Director of Security Jean Brisebois as to how this event could have been better dealt with: or, how the chaos of Sept. 9 could have been avoided altogether.
When Slater questioned Brisebois’ decision to have Netanyahu at the downtown campus as opposed to the more remote Loyola campus, which he says would have been safer for students, Brisebois responded: “The main problem of Sept. 9 was not our security evaluation, but the demonstrators who decided to use violence.”
Brisebois added the university had undertaken unprecedented security measures: there were 80 police officers, 79 security guards, 24 RCMP and a bomb sniffing dog.
Zuberi said the increase in security indicated that violence was expected to break out. He said the Hall Building should have been completely closed so that students would not have been endangered.
CSU councillor Andr
