Canadian judge refuses to order end to pro-Palestinian encampment

TRENTON, Canada

A Quebec judge rejected an injunction Wednesday to remove a pro-Palestinian encampment from Montreal’s McGill University, according to media reports.

Marc St.-Pierre said McGill did not prove its argument that there was an urgent need to remove the camp from its front lawn.

St.-Pierre said this was a case of protesters’ freedom of expression clashing with the university’s property rights. He said there needs to be a debate whether “peaceful occupation” is included under freedom of expression, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported.

“The question is important in addition to being complex, so a more in-depth analysis than is normally done in the context (of) a provisional injunction is desirable,” St.-Pierre said in his decision.

McGill lawyer Jacques Darche argued the university could not ensure its campus was safe because protesters would not allow university personnel inside to inspect the camp.

But the judge noted that the school “cannot report any serious or violent incident since the erection of the first tents on the campus site.”

Pro-Palestinian protesters set up camp April 27 and demanded the university disclose and divest any investments that supported Israel’s actions against Palestinians.

The judge said protesters answered McGill’s injunction request by providing affidavits that argued the encampment poses no danger and that the university argument that something might happen was specious.​​​​​​​

“The undersigned (St.-Pierre) does not, in any case, issue an injunction order as a preventive measure in case something purely hypothetical happens in the future,” the judge wrote.