Encampment ramping up in Edmonton
Riot police shut down Calgary protest
EDMONTON • A campus protest encampment at the University of Alberta was ramping up a day after a similar sit-in in Calgary was shut down amid the loud noise and haze of flashbang explosives as police clashed with demonstrators.
On the central grassy area of the Edmonton campus Friday, about 35 small tents were set up close together. There were Palestinian flags, both cloth versions and hand-painted cardboard ones.
Early-rising demonstrators, most in their early 20s, sipped coffee as the sun rose, chatting in camp chairs underneath an awning.
Nearby was a handwritten sign reminding protesters to keep the focus on solidarity with Gaza and to direct all media to designated spokespeople.
It was a dramatically different scene the night before on the University of Calgary campus when around 8:30 p.m., police officers in riot gear moved in, beginning an hours-long standoff with demonstrators. At around 11:10 p.m., officers began to forcefully push back activists with their shields, using tear gas and stun grenades.
The activists who had set up tents that morning had been warned by both police and U of C officials that they were trespassing and that their encampment would be removed. Participating students said they were also threatened with sanctions from the U of C.
“Members of the campus community are free to protest but they are not free to camp,” the university said in a statement earlier Thursday.
When police officers moved into the camp’s southern perimeter that evening, they hurled aside a few of the roughly 20 tents and ordered the protesters to leave.
That began a standoff that lasted for nearly three hours as activists and police discussed bringing an end to the encampment while other protesters chanted and taunted officers as a police helicopter circled overhead.
“This is not a negotiation,” said one officer.
By 10:30 p.m., the number of protesters that had grown to about 150 had thinned considerably, but a group of about 20 activists remained, linking arms as they faced a line of riot and bicycle-mounted police and chanted “We will not be moved.”
Then at around 11:10, after numerous warnings by police that arrests were imminent, officers began forcefully pushing back the line of activists with their shields before releasing tear gas.
As protesters and journalists alike were stampeded through the campus by shouting police officers, several fiery flash bangs exploded.
“It’s insane, we were negotiating,” said a winded Wesam Cooley, who’d been trying to defuse the situation with police.
“A flash bang exploded under my feet.”
Cooley said it appeared several of the protesters were arrested, including one man in a gas mask standing behind a sign reading “All Eyes on Rafah.”
Many of the protesters blamed U of C administrators for the show of force.
“They are also complicit in this, they are a wing of the state,” said Deigo Loboguerroro.
The activists were stunned by the swiftness of the police action, insisting other encampments on Canadian and U.S. campuses had been allowed to remain far longer.
In a news release issued shortly after the standoff ended, police said their use of weapons was prompted by items thrown at them.
On the Edmonton campus, there was no visible security staff from the University of Alberta and no police Friday morning,
School administrators warned protesters that while they respect free speech, they are trespassing,
“It’s day-by-day, waiting and seeing how the university chooses to respond,” said David Kahane, one of the protest organizers and a professor on campus.
“For the moment, I think wisely, they have simply let this peaceful encampment for justice be.”
There were multiple handmade signs and slogans: Our Tuition Funds Genocide; Silence is Violence; Welcome to the People’s University for Palestine; and From Edmonton to Gaza Globalize the intefadeh.
Clutches of summer-school students shouldering backpacks walked by, with a few breaking stride to see what was going on.
Kahane, who teaches political science, said they want answers on whether Israel — and through it the Israeli military — benefits financially through university investments. If the university is investing, those investments must stop, he said.
He said students are inspired by time-honoured protest methods and that campus protests and calls for divestment helped end the racist apartheid system in South Africa.
IT’S INSANE ... A FLASH BANG EXPLODED UNDER MY FEET.