University of Toronto Protesters Vow to Continue Gaza Encampment as Admin Demands Police Clear It

this news is funded by viewers like you please support our work at democracynow.org this is democracy Now democracynow.org the Warren peace report I'm Amy Goodman with nuring sha we go now to Canada where a judge yesterday responded to an injunction filed by the University of Toronto for the police to clear a pro Palestinian encampment on its downtown campus the judge set the injunction hearing dates for June 19th and 20th in the court filing the judge acknowledged that those dates do not accommodate the University's interest in clearing the encampment before graduation ceremonies begin in early June but he said a fair opportunity must be given to the protesters to make their case students launched the encampment known as the people Circle for Palestine on May 2nd it quickly became one of the largest encampments in North America with 175 tents hundreds of campers and a sacred fire led by indigenous Elders the camp is supported by faculty University staff alumni and those last week the university issued a trespass notice to protesters threatening disciplinary measures for students and staff supporting the camp threatening an unprecedented Mass termination of Faculty on Tuesday dozens of Faculty members held a news conference speak out against the University's request for the police to clear the encampment we say to our Administration if you decide to move against the students you'll have to go through us first that was Deb Cowen a professor of geography and planning at the University of Toronto she joins us now from Toronto she's also a steering committee member of the Jewish faculty Network and we're joined by Muhammad Yassin a graduating senior at the University of Toronto studying economics and statistics he's a media spokesperson for occupy University of Toronto and a member of the student negotiating team yen is a Palestinian with family members currently in Gaza we welcome you both to democracy now we're seeing a replay of what's happening in the United States in Canada you have these professors bringing police onto college campuses as they're being hold before in the United States it's Congress in Canada uh the President of University of Toronto right uh just spoke uh Professor Deb Cowan uh before the Canadian Parliament um you said that the police have to go through you the faculty uh before getting the students in the encampment um Muhammad y can you start off by talking about what are your demands yeah um first off thank you for having us um you know our demands are very clear and they're very simple uh our first demand is for the University of Toronto to disclose all Investments held in endowments short-term working capital assets and other Financial Holdings uh the second demand that we have is for them to divest their endowment Capital assets uh and other Financial Holdings uh from all direct and indirect Investments the that sustain uh Israeli apartheid occupation and legal settlements of Palestine our third demand is for the University of Toronto to terminate all Partnerships with Israeli academic institutions that operate in settlements uh in occupied Palestinian territories or support or sustain the apartheid policies of the state of Israel and its ongoing genocide in Gaza and Deb could you talk about the the level of Faculty support at the University of Toronto how you became involved with this and how you've been working with students oh for sure and thank you so much for having me it's a it's a true honor to be here with one of the brilliant students Muhammad here and also as a a very small part of what is a ground swell a massive ground swell of support on our campus and well beyond um in addition to uh the hundreds of Faculty that have been actively supporting the people's Circle for Palestine um their staff um there are alumni there are there are um excuse me honorary doctors who have been stepping forward and um the quote that you shared with me about standing with faculty um in front of to protect the students from any kind of police raid of the camp actually was an echo of something that was said the day before um in an extraordinary labor rally by Laura Walton who's the president of the Ontario Federation of Labor which represents a million workers and 45 unions and she said if you move against the students you'll have to go through workers first so on tues Tuesday at The Faculty rally we echoed that same commitment to defend and protect our students in their in their very righteous um courageous stand and Muhammad could you describe describe the encampment uh how the tents were uh set up how all of the students organized and what prompted the the organization uh of the students at this time uh to what extent were you inspired by uh what began at Columbia University right here in New York yeah so w with regards to um you know what inspired us to do this uh obviously we we did take heavy inspiration from uh our our fellows at Colombia uh but organizing the University of Toronto at least from our student uh you know uh segment has been going on um for at least 7 months uh at least in our capacity uh we've had our demands sent to the university and the president directly uh who continue to ignore us for about six months until we had uh similar actions including the occupation of the president's office uh for about 36 hours uh this encampment is simply an escalation on that as the university has refused to meet with Palestinian students uh and meet our demands uh you know even more simply than that um with with regards to the encampment itself um it it was it it was a night in which a lot of people came together uh and at about 4: in the morning we uh entered King's College Circle as it was called now the people Circle for Palestine uh which was fenced off by the university uh in anticipation of something like this uh when things started you know happening in Colombia the University of Toronto set up a fence around the circle uh expecting us to take that area knowing that it's the heart of the University right in front of the building in which the administration meets in which you know president mer girtler has his office uh and as such they try to prevent us from taking that space uh as students we you know have all the right to be there it's our University it's our space uh and so at early morning on you know May 2nd uh 4 in the morning uh we enter that space anyways and set up all of our tents and professor professor Deb uh Cohen if you could explain how is the faculty Association at UFT uh responding to faculty such of your such as yourself who have shown solidarity with the encampments what is the level of Faculty support and how has the administration responded so far to faculty who have supported the encampments the pro Palestine encampments yeah like um Muhammad here um I would I would want to say that the faculty support has been longstanding and um and certainly faculty organizing around Palestinian Liberation has taken place for many many years on the University of Toronto campus in fact I think one of the reasons why we've seen such strong and such United faculty support for the student L movement is because of many years of of relationship building um of collaboration between a series of networks including the Jewish faculty Network a healthc Care Alliance for Palestine and the faculty for Palestine group itself um and even before that so those groups have been working together for many years we had a major centure of our campus just a few years ago for the uniring of Valentina azarova at the law faculty because of her work on occupied on the occupied territories um and even well before that the University of Toronto campus is known for having been the place where Israeli aparti week was was first founded and where BDS campaigns were led by graduate students um you know decades ago so I I think there's there's a long tradition of relationship building of trust building and of I think very powerful um solidarity between uh students staff Librarians faculty and wider community members um and I can say if the The Faculty Association responded to preemptive threats from the administration uh accusing um any potential student encampment of of uh being unauthorized uh of being um an act of trespass and also of um you know the faculty Association wrote a letter uh also suggesting that the kinds of uh the the the the language of the kind of threat and unsafety was also deeply racialized language uh which is not insignificant given that the student movement is Led primarily by by students of color and in particular Palestinian Arab black um Muslim and Indigenous students and of course many many Jewish students all groups that have either been um that have been historically or ongoing um in terms of the racialized stigmatization so the faculty Association challenged um the the whole university framing of the illegality and unauthorized nature of the protest and that that um legal letter that was uh sent to the administration over a month ago now has never has never actually received response um Muhammad before we end I want to ask how your family is in Gaza right now and what your plans are to the end I mean it looks like the injunction is there's going to be a court hearing right around graduation in a few weeks yeah um with with regards to my family Anda I'm I'm in communication with them whenever you know they they get the chance to talk obviously they're not in a situation where they can constantly respond to us uh we we do get mail uh from them they're watching our encampment very closely actually they send us letters that are you know heartbreaking you know anytime I read them I quite literally can't stop crying uh the sentiment is shared by everybody in the camp who I read these letters to um but you know it's it's because of that that we have faith in what we're doing we know what we're doing is just and all of us are willing to stand our ground no matter what happens uh everybody went into this uh expecting that a police response is a possibility uh our fellows in in other universities up in Alberta were brutalized by the police uh when they had their stands at their encampments uh we're ready to face the same um because what we understand is that anything that we go through is not even a fraction uh of what our brothers and sisters Anda are going through uh you know my family in particular you know they they've had to eat leaves and grass because they have no food to eat you know they've had to you know wake up every single day under bombardment their children are are terrified constantly you know they've lost all of their innocence they they can't even you know live normally dayto day yet we're expected to sit here and and just watch you know we we can't do that and and as students and as you know as faculty I'm sure and you know as as labor workers who have come together for this we all understand that we have a duty to these people uh we have power in our hands we are put here in a specific position uh in the specific time and place where we can exercise some sort of ability to make a change uh and we are all more than committed to do that no matter the consequences and finally uh Professor Cowan um when the Canadian Parliament holds hearings on anti-Semitism if you can respond as a member of the Jewish faculty Network I mean the I think those those hearings have been widely dismissed as quite the Sham um compared to having fossil fuel hearings entirely um staffed by entirely um uh uh constituted by Pro uh fossil fuel Pro oil companies I mean the there's not a single represent member or group represented that diverges from a pro-israel uh a strong pro-israel Lobby and uh many groups um are even um boycot ing those hearings um and I'd like to just bring it back to what the camp has been doing which is in in some senses it's even baffling that we have to have this conversation that we're facing these threats of discipline and even termination for tenur faculty and certainly um various kinds of discipline for students because from my perspective and I think from the perspective of many faculty who've been teaching at the University for years and years we have maybe never seen our campus be so alive with the spirit of debate of of creative thought of rigorous uh conversation and dialogue and debate it is for me one of the most precious learning spaces I've ever experienced and that's in the context our president likes to keep saying that you know convocation must happen our graduation ceremonies must happen because this is the covid generation and they need those kinds of spaces well it's the co generation that has built this camp and they have built a space of multifaith collaboration we've had Shabbat we're planning our fifth Shabbat for Friday night um where we have prayers in both Arabic and Hebrew we have these incredible um spaces of conversation of learning and the learning goes all directions it's not One Direction so the very Promises of our University which were of course um compromised deeply during lockdowns um and I think what the university almost seems to prefer the disconnected heavily managed student body as opposed to what is is really uh a manifestation a kind of emboldening of our our institution statement of institutional purpose that is happening at the Circle for Palestine the people's Circle for Palestine so many of us not only defend the basic rights of our students in their in their stand and their protest and in their their rights to freedom of speech and assembly but we feel incredibly protective of the beautiful beautiful experiment in in relationships in learning and and in a future that is very very different from the what the world is giving us we feel a personal stake in defending that space democracy Now is funded by viewers like you please give today at democracynow.org

Channel: Democracy Now!

Views: 34,550

Keywords: Democracy Now, Amy Goodman, News, Politics, democracynow, Independent Media, Breaking News, World News

Id: xYWa7bzu2bs

Length: 14min 34sec (874 seconds)

Published: Thu May 30 2024