Updated: Pro-Palestinian protesters remove flags, belongings from McGill encampment

Article content

Tap here for live updates to this story July 10, 2024.

McGill University is dismantling the pro-Palestinian encampment that has been on its downtown Montreal campus since April 27.

A private security firm hired by the university read an eviction notice to protesters early Wednesday.

Montreal’s riot squad had been on the scene as of 3 a.m., according to an unofficial source.

Article content

By 10 a.m., protesters were gathering up flags and personal belongings as employees of the private security firm, wearing yellow vests and hard hats, walked through the tent city and removed some of the fencing that has been in place since the encampment began. Some people walked in front of the encampment waving Palestinian flags.

Montreal police and SQ officers on Sherbrooke St. near the Roddick Gates held back a crowd of protesters who were pounding drums and chanting slogans calling for revolution.

Some small excavator trucks were on the scene and one large excavator was parked behind the Roddick for several hours.

Sherbrooke St. was closed between Peel and University Sts.

SPVM spokesperson Jean-Pierre Brabant said at 10 a.m. that there has not been a need for police intervention so far, though two people were removed from the campus and escorted to a police squad car. It’s unclear whether they were taken into custody.

“At this point what I can tell you is that on the Montreal police department side, everything is going well outside the encampment and even in the encampment,” Brabant said.

Article content

Toggle full screen modePrevious Gallery Image

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 

10. 

11. 

Next Gallery ImageToggle gallery captions

All 11 Photos for Gallery

Function Not Available

Full Screen is not supported on this browser version.

You may use a different browser or device to view this in full screen.

OK

Article content

Article content

Brabant said the force was informed by McGill University that it would be dismantling the encampment and that officers arrived at the scene just before 5 a.m. They were stationed off-campus on Sherbrooke St. to ensure “safety for everyone.”

Several businesses on Sherbrooke St., including a coffee shop and a restaurant, were closed.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and the Federation CJA praised McGill for taking measures to “prioritize the safety and well being of the university community and to end the toxicity, the hateful glorification of terrorism and the targeting of Jewish students on the campus.”

The university said it is proceeding with the dismantling because the encampment represented “profound health and safety risks that continue to grow in scope and severity” and contended that the university had been “subject to ongoing and escalating acts of violence and vandalism associated with the encampment, up to and including criminal acts on campus last weekend.”

McGill president Deep Saini said in a statement that the dismantling of the encampment was taking place “in close collaboration with the city of Montreal and police … (and) the engagement of a qualified security firm.”

Article content

Saini repeated the university’s position that it supported “the right to free expression and assembly, within the bounds of the laws and policies that keep us all safe.”

“However, recent events go far beyond peaceful protest and have inhibited the respectful exchange of views and ideas that is so essential to the university’s mission and to our sense of community.”

Saini accused “people linked to the camp” of having “harassed our community members, engaged in antisemitic intimidation, damaged and destroyed McGill property, forcefully occupied a building, clashed with police and committed acts of assault.

“They also hosted a ‘revolutionary youth summer program’ advertised with images of masked individuals holding assault rifles. The risks emanating from the camp have been escalating, steadily and dangerously.”

Saini said the university was acting because city of Montreal fire inspectors “had long been denied access to the camp. Given the growing risks and the impossibility of knowing what was happening inside, the university engaged a firm to investigate the activities within the encampment. What they found led the university to determine that the need for the camp’s dismantlement was urgent.”

Article content

The university president claims few people from the McGill community are in the encampment, saying most protesters are activists from external groups and that unhoused people are also using the camp. He claimed there has been drug use and said the camp is infested with rats.

“This camp was not a peaceful protest,” Saini wrote. “It was a heavily fortified focal point for intimidation and violence, organized largely by individuals who are not part of our university community.”

Protesters have demanded that McGill end its investments in businesses that profited from Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip as well as end all affiliations with Israeli universities.

Article content

Two attempts to obtain injunctions forcing the dismantling of the encampment were rejected by Quebec Superior Court.

On June 6, protesters entered the James Administration building at the downtown campus and Montreal police made 15 arrests.

Other protest encampments in Quebec were dismantled after agreements were reached with the universities involved. Last week, a protest encampment erected on public property in Victoria Square was dismantled by Montreal police.

This story will be updated.

Article content

Article content