Students set up tents at Uof T
UNIVERSITY SAYS CAMP CONSIDERED TRESPASSING, PROTESTERS VOW TO STAY
Tents, banners and flags cropped up at the centre of the University of Toronto's downtown campus early Thursday as students set up an encampment to call on the institution to cut its ties with Israel over the war in Gaza.
The students said they breached a fence that had been installed around an area on campus known as King's College Circle around 4 a.m. to establish their encampment.
They said they were joining students at other universities in the United States and Canada in setting up encampments to call on their schools to disclose their ties with the Israeli government and divest from Israeli companies.
“We have many, many students, many undergraduate students, graduate students from all kinds of backgrounds, all kinds of religions … all here. We also have a number of faculty who are supporting us,” Erin Mackey, one of the protest organizers, said at the encampment on Thursday morning.
Mackey, who is with the group U of T Occupy for Palestine, said students had occupied a building outside the university president's office a few weeks ago and eventually were able to meet with him but were not satisfied with the discussion.
By late Thursday morning, dozens of tents could be seen set up at the centre of King's College Circle — which protesters said they were now calling the People's Circle for Palestine — with a few police cars and private security vehicles seen parked nearby.
Some held up pro-Palestinian banners and signs were put up in trees.
Some people were seen sitting together on tarps laid out on the grass, while others walked around. Several wore keffiyehs, a checkered scarf typically worn in Arab cultures that has come to symbolize, in part, solidarity with Palestinians.
Mackey said protesters had been told they would have to vacate their encampment by 10 p.m. but the group had no plans to leave.
A written notice given to protesters said the university respects its members' right to assemble and protest but unauthorized activities such as encampments “are considered trespassing.”
In a written statement Thursday morning, the university said its campuses remain open and noted that protest activities “must not interfere with the ability of students, faculty, librarians and staff to learn, teach, research and work.”
“Our preference is to start with dialogue,” the university wrote. “Those who contravene university policy or the law risk the consequences set out in various laws and policies such as the Code of Student Conduct, which could include suspension.”
The new encampment at the University of Toronto comes as activists have pitched their tents on campuses across the country in recent days, including encampments at McGill University in Montreal, the University of Ottawa, Western University in London, Ont., and the University of British Columbia.
Quebec Premier François Legault said on Thursday that police should move in and dismantle the encampment at McGill University.
Speaking to reporters in Quebec City, he said the protest, in place since Saturday, is illegal. Legault said he will leave it up to police to decide when and how to proceed.
“Everybody in Quebec has to respect laws, and right now these encampments are illegal,” he said. “We have to respect the law. And I want to make sure that the police officers ensure the laws are respected.”
On Wednesday, a Quebec Superior Court judge rejected a request from two McGill students who sought to have the protesters at the encampment barred from being within 100 metres of any of the school's buildings.
However, “if you read the decision, they say clearly that (the encampment is) illegal,” Legault said.
He added: “We're all worried about what's happening in Gaza. People can show their (position) in demonstrations — these are allowed, these are legal. But they cannot have encampments on a university site.”
As the encampment entered its sixth day Thursday, there was a visible police presence ahead of a planned counter-protest by pro-Israel groups.
In the United States, campuses have seen a wave of protests in recent weeks linked to the Israel-Hamas war. At least 200 people were arrested at UCLA Thursday, bringing the nationwide total of arrests to more than 2,000 at dozens of college campuses since police cleared an encampment at Columbia University in mid-April, according to a tally by The Associated Press.
Demonstrations — and arrests — have occurred in almost every corner of the nation. But in the last 24 hours, they've drawn the most attention at the University of California, Los Angeles, where chaotic scenes played out early Thursday as officers in riot gear surged against a crowd of demonstrators.
Police removed barricades and began dismantling demonstrators' fortified encampment at UCLA after hundreds of protesters defied orders to leave, some forming human chains as police fired flash-bangs to break up the crowds.