Police crackdown on protest sparks outcry
Edmonton police dismantled a pro-Palestinian encampment on the University of Alberta’s campus on Saturday, prompting outrage from students and academics who described the operation as violent and contested allegations that demonstrators were breaking the law.
Organizers said police fired tear gas and pepper-spray balls and wielded batons against students at the university’s north campus quad shortly after arriving at 4:30 a.m., resulting in one hospitalization and several attendees placed in zip-tie handcuffs.
Videos posted to social media show a line of police members clashing with protesters in the dawn light, as young people shout “Free, free Palestine” before officers advance chanting “Move” and shoving and striking some students with billy clubs.
The footage aligns with descriptions from political science professor David Kahane, a member of the Edmonton chapter of Independent Jewish Voices Canada who was on-site with the demonstrators and called the experience “violent” and “gutting.”
“I personally saw quite a heavily bleeding surface wound that came from a baton strike. I personally saw — this was after the police engagement was over — bruises from non-lethal projectiles that people were showing on their legs and arms,” Kahane said in a phone interview. “It was not peaceful.”
The scene portrayed by participants stood in stark contrast to the picture painted by authorities. Police said no tear gas was deployed, no one was hospitalized and use of force was limited.
“Our response was specifically directed at three individuals who were being aggressive with EPS members, one of whom assaulted an officer,” said spokesperson Scott Pattison in an email. University president Bill Flanagan echoed police in saying “almost all of the occupants of the encampment peacefully dispersed.”
In a statement Saturday, he cited fire hazards and the risk of escalation and violent clashes with counterprotesters among the reasons for the police action at the two-day-old camp.
About one quarter of the 50 protesters were University of Alberta students, Flanagan said.
Following the lead of protesters on U.S. campuses, demonstrators in Canada have erected encampments at universities in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver as well as Calgary, where police forcibly removed participants from campus on Thursday night. The head of the University of Calgary said the dismantling operation devolved into a clash with officers because of counterprotesters.
That incident, along with Saturday’s clearance in Edmonton, prompted a group of about 500 mostly Canadian academics to call for censure of the two Alberta institutions.
“In light of the undemocratic and harmful actions taken by the University of Calgary and University of Alberta, we, the undersigned, demand an immediate academic boycott of the institution,” the group said in a statement Saturday.