U of C officials to meet with pro-Palestinian encampment protesters

Article content

U of C officials say they’ll meet with pro-Palestinian protesters who were violently driven by police from campus but poured cold water on meeting their demands.

Officials said university administrators didn’t provide specific direction to police in the late evening of May 9, in the moments before law enforcement used shields, batons, pepper spray and stun grenades to remove activists who’d already dismantled their encampment.

Article content

“While we requested the police to enforce the notice of trespass at 6:30 a.m. on May 9, we did not direct any police actions or approaches,” the U of C said in a written response to a number of questions submitted by Postmedia.

“You will need to speak to the police about their operational approach.”

Police Chief Mark Neufeld has repeatedly said protesters were given numerous warnings to leave and that activists had thrown projectiles at officers.

This reporter counted two plastic water bottles tossed at police during a 2½-hour standoff, and no projectiles thrown at police in the moments leading up to the officers’ charge.

Police had said no one was injured when officers in riot gear advanced into a line of about 20 chanting demonstrators that included students and alumni members.

But activists say several of their group suffered injuries, some of which required hospitalization.

University says protesters’ demands can’t be met

The protesters’ demands included the U of C end any financial arrangements with Israel given its nearly eight-month onslaught on the Gaza Strip and 57-year military occupation of Palestinian territory.

Article content

Article content

In its written statement, the U of C said four days after it received a letter from the activists outlining those demands, it told them “much of what they asked for would not be possible, but we could discuss the specifics of their petition and avenues to advance their concerns.”

The university said it’s “unclear” whether it has financial links to Israeli interests and that it’s reviewing it, while adding its decision to promptly remove the encampment wasn’t taken under pressure from U of C donors.

It said they’ll meet on June 6 with activists, who’ve said U of C administration had ignored their requests to discuss their demands for weeks and led them to set up their encampment in the early morning of May 9.

But U of C officials said they first received a message from the group in an email in the late afternoon of May 7, and that “we were in the process of drafting a reply when encampment began morning of May 9.”

U of C says protesters’ removal was due to safety concerns

Last week, 623 U of C students, staff and alumni signed a petition condemning the actions of the university and police, demanding an explanation.

Article content

On Friday, the university stated safety concerns posed by potential counter-protesters and the reality the encampment was trespassing led them to order its removal.

But a group of 19 U of C and University of Alberta law faculty members say those protesters’ Charter rights, even in an encampment, were violated and that a 2020 Alberta Court of Appeal ruling underlines that.

“Arguments that the trespass notices are justified by fire hazards or other safety or operational issues cannot be sustained in light of the fact that the students do not appear to have been given a meaningful opportunity to understand and rectify any such concerns before the notices were served,” they stated in an open letter.

“In the absence of meaningful engagement, discretionary trespass notices and the decision to call in police to enforce such notices are not reasonable and proportionate limits on charter rights.”

Two days after the police action at the U of C, Edmonton police dispersed a similar encampment on the U of A campus.

But while the U of C again reiterated their support for peaceful protest, university officials again insisted they were within their rights to almost immediately remove an encampment, adding that policy won’t change.

Article content

“The University is comfortable defending its position in a legal setting, if necessary . . . to date there have been no legal actions taken against the university related to the events of May 9,” they said.

Encampment organizers U of C Faculty for Palestine didn’t respond to a request for comment on Friday.

In a letter Thursday, the U of C Students’ Union said the university’s actions against the encampment had severely set back relations between it and students and demanded an independent investigation of the incident.

“It appears that (U of C President) Ed McCauley and the executive team would love for this to blow over with time, but when students have been injured by their actions, we cannot allow that to pass without accountability,” said SU president Ermia Rezaei-Afsah.

“The university failed to engage with students then and has continually failed since then.”

Premier Danielle Smith has said she’s directed the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) to investigate the police responses to both university encampments.

The U of C said it has yet to be contacted by ASIRT.

BKaufmann@postmedia.com

X (Twitter) @BillKaufmannjrn

Article content