Protests on pro-Palestinian campuses spread to Canadian universities | Canada

Quebec’s premier has said a protest camp at Montreal’s McGill University should be dismantled, while more students set up pro-Palestinian camps at some of Canada’s largest universities demanding they divest from groups with ties to Israel.

“We want the field to be dismantled. “We trust the police, we let them do their job,” said a spokesperson for François Legault.

McGill University requested police intervention, however law enforcement officials have not yet cleared the camp and said in a statement Thursday night that they were monitoring the situation.

Students have also set up camps at the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia and the University of Ottawa.

There was also a pro-Israel counterprotest in Montreal on Thursday. The two sides remained separate.

The Canadian protests come as police arrested hundreds of people on American university campuses this week.

On Thursday morning, University of Toronto students set up camp in a grassy, ​​fenced space on the school’s downtown campus, where 100 protesters gathered with dozens of tents.

According to a statement from organizers, the camp will remain until the university discloses its investments, divests from those that “sustain Israeli apartheid, the occupation and illegal settlements of Palestine” and ends its associations with some Israeli academic institutions.

Israel says it is not involved in apartheid and that its attack on Gaza does not constitute genocide.

A university spokesperson told Reuters it was “in dialogue with protesters” and that, as of midday, the camp was “not disrupting normal university activities.”

University of Toronto graduate student and camp spokesperson Sara Rasikh told Reuters they will remain until their demands are met.

“If public disruption is the only way to make our voices heard, then we are willing to do it,” he said.

When asked to comment on the camps, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office referred to a statement he made on Tuesday, saying: “Universities are places of learning, they are places for freedom of expression… but that’s just It works if people feel safe on campus. Right now…Jewish students don’t feel safe. That is not right.”

Some Jewish groups have accused protesters of being anti-Semitic, however organizers deny that accusation and point out that some protesters are Jewish.