And at Montreal's McGill University's Encampment...?

"This was the latest escalation in a series of unlawful activities designed to intimidate, to coerce, and to achieve objectives through force."

"It should be clear to everyone that attacks on people and property do not represent the legitimate exercise of anyone's rights to free expression or assembly. Nor do they constitute peaceful protest. This needs to stop."

"[Protesters] spray-painted slogans and profanities [on campus]. Even more distressingly, a McGill security agent appears to have been assaulted -- I was extremely relieved to learn that he was not seriously harmed." 

"[The university is working to] restore peace and stability in our campus."

McGill President Deep Saini 

A man enters the boarded-up door to the James Administration Building at McGill University in Montreal on Monday July 8, 2024. Doors and windows were vandalized during a pro-Palestinian demonstration on Friday night. Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal Gazette

"[It is time for protesters to] escalate [beyond] symbolic action [because] we know power won't move unless we strike fear in the heart of the ruling class and pose a threat to their reproduction of capital."

"We will not disavow any actions taken to escalate the struggle, including militant direct actions."

"We keep us safe by escalating."

"Don't hesitate to take more risk."

Palestine Action Montreal

On Friday night McGill property suffered smashed windows and doors. Along with that, an assault on a campus security guard and confrontations with police. The Palestine Action Montreal occupying force called on its supporters to continue to escalate their protest, to branch out and lose their timidity, to occupy buildings and be more confident in confronting police. 

 

Vandals broke windows at McGill University’s administration building and Macdonald Engineering Building Friday night. The damage is seen on Saturday July 6, 2024. Photo by Allen McInnis /Montreal Gazette

Part of McGill University's downtown Montreal campus has been occupied by Pro-Palestinian, Hamas-admiring students and others not affiliated with the university but skilled in organizing and using funding made available from sources as far as the Middle East (Iran/Qatar) since April 27. Insisting they have no intention of leaving until such time as the  university divests from companies with links to the 'genocide of Palestinians' as well as severing relations with Israeli universities.

Encampment supporters marched to the McGill encampment site on Friday night, making their way from Victoria Square, a public park where police had earlier in the day dismantled an unauthorized encampment, at the behest of the municipality and its mayor, Valerie Plante. 

 

"F--- the dismantling, globalize the intifada", organizers -- along with the McGill chapter of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights -- wrote in a social media post prior to the protest. According to the Montreal police department, one person was arrested and two officers received minor injuries in the scuffle. Now, the protesters from the park walked to the university, at one point placing obstructions in the street to block police.

Out in force on foot, bike and horseback, police dispersed demonstrators by using chemical irritants after they manifested a "hostile attitude", said police. Where a 66-year-old man was arrested for assault of a McGill security guard, and for smashing windows. Palestine Action Montreal posted several videos on social media following the protest. "F--- you McGill, f--- you Valerie Plant, and f--- your police".

"This is what you get McGill. You will pay for silencing the students", another video message,  accompanied by graphic images of people breaking windows. The university's President, Saini, criticized the police for their lack of response to a prior protest where an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was hanged from the Roddick Gates at the university.

 

Montreal riot police near McGill’s campus on July 5, 2024. Photo by sphrmcgill via Instagram

Nearby, police merely watched, failing to act. Montreal police, "as we understand it watched the events unfold without preventing them. This baffles us, and we have a asked them to take every action possible under the law", stated the university's president.

President Saini issued a statement following the disassembling of the Victoria Square camp that he had every expectation that the city and the police would remove the encampment on his campus, but Montreal Mayor Plante responded that the city cannot intervene at McGill since unlike Victoria Square, the university is private property -- accusing the university of lacking leadership by failing to "find a way out other than going to court".

Quebec judges have so far rejected McGill requests to order protesters to clear the campus. Police have refused to intervene at his request. Negotiations with the protesters have been fruitless. Their idea of 'negotiating' is to demand that the  university follow their directives. And it seems increasingly evident that the province of Quebec, the city of Montreal, the Montreal Police believe that the university should agree to follow all the demanded directives of a criminal mob.

An image provided to The Gazette shows an effigy of Benjamin Netanyahu in striped pyjamas was hanging from McGill’s Roddick Gates on Sunday, May 26, 2024. Photo: handout