This is a developing story
Several hundreds of protestors rallied in solidarity with Palestine through police-lined streets in downtown Montreal on Oct. 7. Protestors dispersed after police employed tear gas following individuals smashed the lower windows of the Sylvan Adams Sports Science Institute (SASSI) on Avenue des Pins. The following day, McGill announced a 10-day injunction barring Solidarity for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance (SPHR) at McGill and “any person aware of the judgment” from protesting on campus under specific circumstances.
The rally—which both the McGill and Concordia chapters of SPHR organized—began at Concordia’s Henry F. Hall Building at 2 p.m. The protest’s date marked one year since the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel which killed 1,139 people. In the year since, Israeli forces have killed over 42,000 Palestinians, wounded over 98,000, displaced about 1.9 million, and sparked a humanitarian crisis of disease and hunger in the region. In recent weeks, Israel has furthered its military campaign in Lebanon, with Israeli airstrikes in Beirut killing about 1,000 people according to CNN.
Consistent protests in Montreal and worldwide have also marked this past year. At McGill, student protestors have demanded that the university cut ties with and divest from institutions and corporations complicit in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. On Sept. 16, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) announced that it had revoked SPHR’s status as a SSMU club following a notice of default of the union’s Memorandum of Agreement with the university from Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Angela Campbell.
“Despite the administration’s countless attempts to smear and repress the student movement on campus, the outpour of support that we witnessed on Monday marked a historic shift in the history of Palestine organizing on campus,” SPHR wrote in an email to The Tribune. “It revealed that McGill’s crackdown against the students has failed to suppress the movement, and has instead turned the public’s outrage towards McGill’s academic and financial complicity in genocide.”
In anticipation of protests, McGill restricted access to campus between Oct. 5 and 7—later adding Oct. 8—and worked with the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) to deploy dozens of officers, security guards, and riot police. McGill’s campus was accessible only through two points of entry: The Milton Gates and the McTavish Gates.
In an email to The Tribune, McGill’s Media Relations Office (MRO) explained the reasoning for the closure.
“McGill aims to ensure an open campus to the fullest extent possible. However, we also have a vital obligation to safeguard our community and help ensure that classes, midterms and other key activities can continue,” the MRO wrote.
As the protest moved from Concordia to McGill, attendees were led in chants of “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest!” The group walked down Avenue du Docteur-Penfield and turned down Rue McTavish, arriving at the fenced-off entrance to the McLennan-Redpath Library Complex. Tens of protestors broke through the metal fence and rushed the Redpath Library terrace and Lower Field, where they were met by SPVM officers on bikes and riot police.
The hundreds that did not go past the barricade stood face-to-face with a line of police officers blocking the entrance to the Library Complex on McTavish repeating the refrain of “Cops off campus!”
Zev Saltiel, a master’s student in the School of Social Work, explained to The Tribune that they are currently on leave in response to McGill’s complicity with Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. They said this is one of the ways in which they show their solidarity with Palestine.
“I’ve been at protests most weeks now for the past year, and also before that,” Saltiel said. “I feel, as a Jewish person, but also as a trans person, I have an obligation to show up and denounce the genocide being committed in my intersectional identities.”
Following the altercation on Lower Field, protestors made their way toward SASSI. SASSI was funded in large part by a $29 million CAD donation from Israeli-Canadian billionaire Sylvan Adams. Pro-Palestine groups on campus have long criticized SASSI for Adams’ self-proclaimed role as an “ambassador to Israel” as well as the institute’s academic ties to the Sylvan Adams Sports Institute at Tel Aviv University.
A representative from SPHR Concordia addressed the crowd in front of SASSI, expressing that these protests will continue until the institutions meet protestors’ demands.
“We make it very clear again and again to the administrations that we are not going to back down until they divest,” the representative said. “There is only one solution, and it is [to] […] boycott, divest, and sanction.”
On the night of Sept. 14, protestors dropped paint and a banner off the side of SASSI, which is currently under construction. At the Oct. 7 rally, an SPHR at McGill organizer derided the institute, claiming it was an example of sportswashing—a phenomenon in which sports are used to distract from unethical conduct. The representative told the crowd to “take [their] rage out on the building.”
Protestors threw paint and spraypainted the building’s facade. Some individuals took wooden batons and smashed its lower windows. Just past 4:20 p.m., police intervened in the demonstration by deploying tear gas on protestors. The crowd began to flee the scene, chased by yet more police on bikes.
On Oct. 8, an email to the McGill community on behalf of Campbell, and Vice-President (Adminstration and Finance) Fabrice Labeau detailed an injunction against SPHR and “all those who become aware of the judgement.” The 10-day injunction, granted by the Superior Court of Québec, has four central effects. First, those aware of the judgement are not allowed to block access to exits and entrances of any buildings where “McGill activities are underway.” Second, protest activities are prohibited within five metres of McGill buildings. Third, the email banned actions which harass or threaten community members or visitors at McGill. Finally, the email wrote that people may not “engage in behaviour that disturbs the peace or engages in public disturbance.” The injunction decision also obliged SPHR to publish the judgement to its social media accounts and authorized law enforcement officers to arrest and remove any person thought to violate the judgement.
The email went on to stress the need to balance community members’ right to freedom of speech and assembly with McGill’s mission to provide a quality education. Campbell and Labeau stated that SPHR’s commitment to disrupting “business or classes as usual” on campus “clearly violates the fundamental academic rights of students, instructors, and all McGillians.”
The MRO did not elaborate on these measures when asked by The Tribune.
At the Oct. 7 protest, a McGill student who wished to remain unnamed explained the hope that they find through solidarity with others.
“I think it’s really easy to think that it’s hopeless,” they said. “But if you’re surrounded by people who also believe what you believe, then you really understand that this was a choice that was made—colonialism, settler colonialism, Zionism—it’s a choice we can unmake.”
