(Montreal) A pro-Palestinian encampment was dismantled at Laval University on Saturday evening, said the Quebec City Police Service (SPVQ).
Posted at 2:46 p.m.
Coralie Laplante
The Canadian Press
The police went to the grounds of Laval University, near Chemin Sainte-Foy and Avenue du Séminaire, where a demonstration involving around thirty people was taking place, according to the SPVQ.
“The police were able to see that the different groups of demonstrators had started setting up several camps,” the police force said in a press release.
“In connection with article 19.1 of municipal by-law 1091, the police spoke with the demonstrators and explained the regulations to them. They therefore decided to dismantle their camps on their own. However, the group was able to continue to demonstrate as stipulated in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” added the SPVQ in the same document.
Three tickets were given to demonstrators, according to the SPVQ. The police force specified that “in order to avoid recurrence, one of the demonstrators was transported to the detention unit”. Police officers carried out surveillance throughout the night to prevent new camps from setting up on university grounds.
“We saw this as a way of not letting us exercise our right to demonstrate on campus, even though we were doing it in a completely peaceful manner, towards a genocide that is happening on the other side of the ocean,” said the co-spokesperson for the Laval University student movement for Palestine, Antoine Grenier, in an interview on Sunday.
“They gave us 10 minutes to collect our things, as otherwise the 40 police officers who were there were going to enter the camp and do it by force. So yes, we made the decision to put our tents down, and to continue demonstrating without tents on campus for the rest of the day,” he said.
Mr. Grenier said students continued to demonstrate until around 11 p.m. Saturday evening.
The group of students demands in particular “complete financial transparency of the university regarding its investments and its partnerships linked to Israel”, “positioning in favor of a ceasefire and condemnation of the genocide of the State Israeli towards the Palestinian people”, and a “promise of complete disengagement from investments in companies complicit in the genocide”.
“We are sure that we are going to look at what happened with the municipal regulations, because for our part, the lawyers we had told us that we had the right to practice our right to demonstrate. So, in fact, the university movement is a bit like the last place we have to denounce what is happening at the moment in Gaza, especially in relation to the lack of action by our government,” said Mr. Attic.
“We find it really unfortunate that we were not given the opportunity to exercise our right to demonstrate, when everywhere in universities, everywhere in North America, in England or elsewhere, it is a movement which is quite global, and which is not intended to be violent,” he added.
This week, the activist group “Al-Aqsa Popular University of UQAM” announced that it plans to break camp no later than June 6, being satisfied with a resolution adopted Wednesday by the board of directors from the University of Quebec in Montreal.
A pro-Palestinian encampment is still erected on the campus of McGill University in Montreal. In a message published on May 29 on the university’s website, rector Deep Saini says he has not yet reached “common ground” with the camp participants.
