McGill says tensions escalating on campus, again calls for police action
University president says senior adminstrators were followed to their homes by masked demonstrators
McGill University president Deep Saini is asking Montreal police to do more in response to rising tensions on campus, which he says have included masked individuals following and harassing senior administrators at their homes and offices.
In a letter sent to media Wednesday evening, Saini tied a number of actions to the pro-Palestinian encampment set up by university students on its downtown campus lawn a month ago.
In a statement posted on Instagram, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights McGill said the university hasn't been negotiating in good faith, has "slandered and targeted Palestinian students and groups" and "called for the arrest of their own students."
"What makes our administration think that we will allow business to go on as usual," the statement asks, as Gaza officials have reported more than 35,000 Palestinians killed.
Saini described incidents the university has reported to Montreal police, but said little has been done as a result.
He said that on Sunday evening, protesters hung an effigy of an Israeli figure dressed in a striped outfit resembling old prison garb — or outfits Jews and other marginalized people were forced to wear in Holocaust concentration camps — after a pro-Palestinian demonstration in the city ended at the encampment.
It's unclear where exactly the effigy was hung, but Saini said university officials reported the event to Montreal police, "who, as we understand it, watched the events unfold without preventing them."
"This baffles us, and we have asked them to take every action possible under the law," Saini wrote.
Montreal police Chief Fady Dagher said Thursday he understands that some might share Saini's perception but warned that intervening might create "the opposite reaction" from the crowd.
"It's not because we didn't go in or didn't act right away, that means we agree," Dagher said in an interview with CBC Montreal's Daybreak. "It means, for us, we're going to choose the right time to do it."
"Our strategy is never to amplify," he added.
Dagher said he will be meeting with McGill officials on Friday.
Since the encampment was erected April 27, the university has had little luck urging Montreal police to dismantle it. Two provisional injunction requests were filed to have student activists removed from the McGill campus, both of which were rejected by Quebec Superior Court justices. The university is set to return to court again this summer to argue for the encampment to be dismantled.
In the Wednesday letter, Saini said the university will apply disciplinary processes if those who committed the acts are found to be members of the McGill community.
'You can't hide'
More than once, demonstrators have targeted the residences of senior university administrators, Saini said.
One such event was advertised on social media accounts supporting the encampment and billed a "family-friendly, outdoor event," he wrote. Protesters stayed outside the employee's home for hours, yelling "you can't hide" in megaphones.
In another incident, a table with rotting food was set up outside some of the university's offices. Next to it, a sign listed the names of each university staff member on the team with red handprints made to resemble blood. A sign also said, "Food you deserve."
Saini noted an increased amount of graffiti around campus "that comes very close to, and occasionally crosses, the lines into discriminatory speech."
"None of this is peaceful protesting; it is designed to threaten, coerce and scare people. It is completely unacceptable. In each case, we have reported what has happened to the police and urged them to act," Saini said.
Saini said negotiations with protesters have "not been easy," and that McGill had offered them a deal similar to ones that had been accepted by protesters at other universities.
McGill was willing to "examine divestment from companies whose revenues largely come from weapons," Saini said, adding the university has also offered to increase McGill's links to scholars and institutions in Gaza and the West Bank, and provide support to displaced students and scholars.
He said McGill would take steps toward revealing all of its investments, including some of those under $500,000 which are not currently publicly listed by the institution.
But Saini insisted that divestment from companies with ties to Israel, the protesters' main demand, was off the table.
"Calls for divestment based on geopolitical issues — particularly when there are diverse and strongly held views in our community about those issues — serve to divide, not unite," he said.
"Experience has taught us that maintaining a neutral institutional stance best supports as a whole our 50,000 members who hold varied political views, represent diverse identities, origins and beliefs and ardently espouse various causes."
Saini said the offer was made to protesters "before events escalated" and that in the latest talks, the protesters walked out.
Zev Saltiel, a McGill student and member of Independent Jewish Voices, said the encampment is "not responsible for actions taken by independent protesters or supporters in Montreal," in reference to the effigy.
"Discomfort is expected during protests. Feelings of discomfort do not negate the peacefulness of our protest. We are all witnessing a genocide through our phones. We should, at the very least, feel uncomfortable," he said.
"After 30 days of this encampment, as well as decades of Israel's violent and illegal occupation and undeniable genocide, in which McGill and Canada are complicit, it should come as no surprise that people will escalate when demands for justice are met with apathy and empty words."
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With files from Matthew Lapierre, Erika Morris and CBC Montreal's Daybreak