Students for Palestine persist despite challenges.
This is an ongoing story. This online article may be updated as it unfolds.
Last Friday, Aug. 30, students waved flags and chanted on McGill’s downtown campus, in front of GardaWorld, SIRCO, campus security, and police officers. Seven weeks and three days after the forced decampment on July 10, protestors ripped up the grass that now covers the former encampment site.
A few weeks ago, Concordia’s Dean of Students (DOS) removed the organization Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) Concordia from its list of student organizations due to social media posts by SPHR that the DOS considers to be code violations, according to an email from the Office of Rights and Responsibility (ORR) obtained by The Concordian and dated June 27. SPHR is now no longer recognized as an official university organization.
“We’re still here, we’re still strong [in] asking for divestment,” said an anonymous SPHR Concordia representative. “The matter of repression is growing more and more. It doesn’t affect us because, at the end of the day, what matters is our actions and our events.”
The recent protest at McGill follows a series of events that occurred over the past months, including the McGill encampments and protests during Montreal’s Pride parade in response to Pride Montreal’s ties to organizations that protesters say invest in Israel. This summer’s protests were part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a movement pushing for boycotting, divestment and economic sanctions against Israeli organizations.
Earlier this summer, on June 3, SPHR confirmed via its Instagram account that protesters sprayed graffiti on the inside of the Concordia’s Guy de Maisonneuve building entrance. The demonstration was the first major autonomous protest not organized by SPHR.
“This day showed that not all the Palestine actions are limited to SPHR Concordia. The idea of BDS is related to the student body,” said the SPHR representative.
The email sent by the DOS and the director of the ORR requested that the video produced by SPHR be taken down, along with a Youth Summer Program image posted on Instagram in June depicting people holding guns and reading books, and images of “Wanted” posters of Concordia’s Chief Financial and Chief Investment Officers Denis Cossette and Marc Gauthier. These posts are considered by the DOS as code violations, leading to the suspension of the group unless they remove these posts, according to files obtained by The Concordian.
At the time of publishing, SPHR has not taken down the posts.
In response to the Youth Summer Program post, McGill president and Vice-Chancellor Deep Saini wrote in a message to the McGill community in June: “Many in our community have understandably reached out to share grave concerns — concerns that I share. It should go without saying that imagery evoking violence is not a tool of peaceful expression or assembly.”
The Fine Arts Student association, Arts and Sciences Federation of Associations have passed motions to officially support the BDS movement. Other student associations are considering similar motions, and the CSU divested from Scotiabank in April in support of BDS.
On the McGill campus, this summer saw multiple clashes between protesters, university officials, and law enforcement. In response to the Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle protest, which featured the destruction of property and purported assault on an officer occurring on July 5, Saini commented via an email sent to the McGill student body.
“It should be clear to everyone that attacks on people and property do not represent the legitimate exercise of anyone’s rights to free expression or assembly,” he wrote. “Nor do they constitute peaceful protest.”
McGill employed SIRCO after July 5, which is a private investigation and protection company, to force the decampment, as the SVPM attested they wouldn’t dismantle it without judicial clearance.
On Aug. 4, another independently organized Palestinian protest interrupted the Fantasia Film Festival, hosted in the Henry F. Hall building. Québec Premier François Legault was invited and attended the event.
Protesters marched outside the doors of the SGWU Alumni Auditorium to condemn his ties to the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Bnai Brith Canada, and the opening of a Québec office in Tel Aviv in April. The SPVM escorted the protesters out.
