Judge denies injunction to remove pro-Palestinian campus encampment in Canada
Date
5/16/2024 5:48:48 AM
(MENAFN) According to local media reports, Quebec's court rejected McGill University's plea for an injunction to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment on its downtown campus in Montreal. The encampments, which began with approximately 20 tents at McGill University in late April, have since spread to other Canadian universities, including the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, the University of Ottawa, Western University in Ontario, and the University of Toronto.
Justice Marc St-Pierre of the Quebec Superior Court, in a six-page decision, acknowledged that the demonstrators are part of a broader North American movement, which has seen similar encampments established in several dozen universities across the United States. These actions are in solidarity with the ongoing events in the Gaza Strip, where a significant number of Palestinians have suffered casualties, injuries, or displacement due to actions by the Israeli military.
Following arguments presented in court on Monday, Justice St-Pierre ultimately denied McGill University's request for an injunction. Despite McGill's argument that the injunction was necessary as a precautionary measure to safeguard its community members, Justice St-Pierre deemed such action unwarranted, citing a lack of concrete evidence to support the need for preventive measures against hypothetical future events.
Meanwhile, other Canadian universities, such as the University of Alberta in Edmonton and the University of Calgary, took a different approach by swiftly calling in law enforcement to disperse protest encampments shortly after they were erected. These universities asserted that while they respect freedom of speech, the encampments were in violation of trespassing regulations and posed a potential risk of escalating into violent confrontations.
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