Police stopped the pro-Palestinian camp at Laval University in Quebec

MONTREAL — Quebec City police said they forced protesters to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment that was being set up on the grounds of Laval University.

The force said today that three people were ticketed and one was detained and taken to the police station to prevent reoffending.

Police issued a statement saying they arrived on school property Saturday night to find a protest involving about 30 people, including some setting up camp.

They say the officers explained that the camp was in violation of a city ordinance that prohibits people from setting up tents and other structures on public property without permission.

A spokesman for a pro-Palestinian student group confirmed that the protesters had agreed to take down their tents to avoid police dismantling the camp by force.

Antoine Grenier of the mouvement des étudiants de l’Université Laval pour la Palestine says he believes the authorities are stifling the students’ right to peacefully join the campus movement against the Israel-Hamas war.

“We saw this as a way of not letting us exercise our right to demonstrate on campus, even if we were doing it in a completely peaceful way, in the face of a genocide happening on the other side of the ocean,” he said. he said in an interview on Sunday.

“They gave us 10 minutes to pick up our things, otherwise the 40 policemen who were there were going to enter the camp and do it by force. So yes, we made the decision to take down the tents and continue the demonstration without tents. on campus for the rest of the day.”

Quebec City police said the protesters had to take down their tents, but the demonstration was able to continue. Grenier confirmed that protesters remained at the site until around 11 p.m

Pro-Palestinian encampments have been set up on several Canadian university campuses in recent weeks, following a wave of similar protests in the United States.

Protesters at Laval University are demanding the university disclose all of its investments and partnerships that are related to Israel, calling for a cease-fire and denouncing the actions of the Israeli state against the Palestinian people, and pledging to divest from companies complicit in what they call a genocide.

Last week, pro-Palestinian protesters at the Université du Québec à Montréal agreed to dismantle their camp in the coming days after the university passed a resolution meeting many of their demands, including a call for a ceasefire and a promise to does not hold direct investments in companies. profiting from the manufacture of weapons.

Another camp has been set up since late April at McGill University in Montreal, with no sign of an understanding between the protesters and the school.

It’s a similar story at the University of Toronto, where a camp has been set up since early May and is poised to stay as convocation ceremonies begin Monday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on June 2, 2024.

Coralie Laplante, Canadian Press