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 solidarity with the Palestinian cause, joining a wave of similar protests taking place across U.S. campuses amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. 

On Saturday afternoon, organizers could be heard asking over loudspeakers that as many people as possible stay at the encampment overnight. A larger group of demonstrators who had participated in a protest in downtown Montreal joined later, but many of them left campus by 7:30 p.m., the McGill University media relations department said in a statement sent Saturday.

Protesters are demanding McGill and Concordia universities “divest from funds implicated in the Zionist state as well as [cut] ties with Zionist academic institutions,” according 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 University invests in that the organizations 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 concerns about divestment through the University’s established processes,” but so far, the committee that reviews those matters at McGill “has received no expression of concern on this topic.” 

The statement noted that McGill does not invest directly in individual stocks or companies since external fund managers hired by the university choose “investments for mandates in segregated accounts and pooled funds, the composition of which is continually changing.” 

Israel launched its war against Hamas after the militant 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 destruction of key hospitals and, according to the United Nations, the displacement of 1.9 million people.

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The Montreal chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement called the encampment “indefinite,” adding that it refuses to let universities “be complicit in genocide,” in a social media post on Instagram. 

Another student group, Solidarité pour les droits humains des Palestiniennes et Palestiniens also urged UQAM’s students and personnel to join in as well, in a post to Facebook. 

In an email to CBC News sent Saturday, McGill University says it’s aware the encampment is happening and it supports the right of its students to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly within the bounds of the university’s policies and law. It added that the Dean of Students and a representative from McGill security instructed protesters to remove their tents, but they refused.

Saturday evening, the media relations department confirmed the protest has been peaceful and is contained to the lower field.