Updated May 1, 2024 @ 2:39pm
Pro-Palestinian activists who have pitched their tents on the McGill University campus scored a legal victory on Wednesday when a Quebec judge rejected a request for an injunction to stop their protest.
Two students at the Montreal university had asked Quebec Superior Court to order protesters to move at least 100 metres from school buildings, saying their presence had created an environment of aggression and left them feeling unsafe.
Justice Chantal Masse ruled Wednesday that the students failed to demonstrate that their access to the school was being blocked or that they would be unable to write their final exams.
She also took into account statements from the protesters that argued that such an order would have a "chilling effect" on their rights to free speech.
"The court is of the opinion that the balance of inconveniences leans to the side of the protesters, whose freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly would be seriously affected," she wrote. The evidence of harm to the students, on the other hand, is "rather limited, arising more from subjective worries and discomfort rather than precise and serious worries for their safety."
Masse said that while some of the slogans and statements attributed to the protesters are "troubling," there's no indication that they constitute direct threats towards the plaintiffs.
In the injunction request heard Tuesday, the students submitted evidence of slogans such as “Intifada,” “From the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever,” and “all Zionists are terrorists” being chanted or printed on banners as examples of the "hostile, aggressive and violent" atmosphere created by the protesters.
Masse noted that different groups have different interpretations of what those slogans mean. However, she put out what she called an "invitation" to the protesters “to review the words they use during protests and dispense with using those that are susceptible to being perceived, rightly or wrongly, as calls to violence or as antisemitic statements.”
Several dozen tents have been pitched on the school's lower field since Saturday, following a wave of similar protests on campuses across the United States linked to the Israel-Hamas war. Pro-Palestinian protesters have also set up encampments at the University of British Columbia's Point Grey campus and at the University of Ottawa.
McGill University, which decided to remain neutral rather than supporting the injunction request, has asked for police assistance to help dismantle the camp after failing to persuade the protesters to end what the school has called an illegal action. But as of Wednesday it was unclear how and when officers might intervene.
The judge said that while the campers are illegally occupying the grounds where they're camping, "it is for the moment premature to conclude that the situation won’t be resolved adequately and non-violently with a progressive police intervention."
McGill issued a statement saying it was encouraged by the court's finding that the protesters' presence is illegal and its recognition that the university's call for police assistance was "a last resort" after attempts at negotiations failed.
The protesters have said they have no intention of dismantling their tents until the school, as well as nearby Concordia University, divests from companies that protesters claim are "profiting from genocide." They also want the school to cut ties with Israeli academic institutions.
Banner image: Pro-Palestinian activists fly a flag in an encampment set up on McGill University's campus in Montreal, Monday, April 29, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 1, 2024.
