Students set up 'indefinite' pro-Palestinian encampment at McGill University
About 20 tents went up on McGill's downtown campus Saturday in what students are calling an act of solidar‐ ity with the Palestinian cause, joining a wave of similar protests taking place across U.S. campuses amid the ongoing IsraelHamas war.
On Saturday afternoon, organizers could be heard asking over loudspeakers that as many people as pos‐ sible stay at the encampment overnight. A larger group of demonstrators who had par‐ ticipated in a protest in downtown Montreal joined later, but many of them left campus by 7:30 p.m., the McGill University media rela‐ tions department said in a statement sent Saturday.
Protesters are demanding McGill and Concordia univer‐ sities "divest from funds im‐ plicated in the Zionist state as well as [cut] ties with Zion‐ ist academic institutions," ac‐ cording to a statement sent to CBC News by Zaynab Ali, a McGill student participating in the protest.
Ali was referencing a data set published on April 18 by McGill Hunger Strike for Palestine and Students for Justice in Palestine. It lists 50 companies that McGill Uni‐ versity invests in that the or‐ ganizations say are "complicit in upholding the apartheid regime of Israel."
A statement from McGill
University sent to CBC News Saturday said two members of the university's senior management team told the group "it could raise its con‐ cerns about divestment through the University's es‐ tablished processes," but so far, the committee that re‐ views those matters at McGill "has received no expression of concern on this topic."
The statement noted that McGill does not invest di‐ rectly in individual stocks or companies since external fund managers hired by the university choose "invest‐ ments for mandates in segre‐ gated accounts and pooled funds, the composition of which is continually chang‐ ing."
Israel launched its war against Hamas after the mili‐ tant group's attacks on Oct. 7. During the attacks, some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. More than 130 hostages are still being held in Gaza, including women and children.
Health authorities in Gaza say Israel's offensive in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians - the majority of them women and children and has led to the imminent risk of famine, the destruc‐ tion of key hospitals and, ac‐ cording to the United Na‐ tions, the displacement of 1.9 million people.
LISTEN | Historic hear‐ ings on Israel's decadeslong occupation of Pales‐ tinian territories:
The Montreal chapter of the Palestinian Youth Move‐ ment called the encampment "indefinite," adding that it re‐ fuses to let universities "be complicit in genocide," in a social media post on Insta‐ gram.
Another student group, Solidarité pour les droits hu‐ mains des Palestiniennes et Palestiniens also urged UQAM's students and per‐ sonnel to join in as well, in a post to Facebook.
In an email to CBC News sent Saturday, McGill Univer‐ sity says it's aware the en‐ campment is happening and it supports the right of its students to freedom of ex‐ pression and freedom of as‐ sembly within the bounds of the university's policies and law. It added that the Dean of Students and a representa‐ tive from McGill security in‐ structed protesters to re‐ move their tents, but they re‐ fused.
Saturday evening, the media relations department confirmed the protest has been peaceful and is con‐ tained to the lower field.