Pro-Palestine advocates launched an encampment at the University of Guelph and don't plan to leave until the university stops its military-related investments in Israel.
This comes a week after an encampment started at the University of Waterloo. U of G is one of many encampments across universities in Canada and elsewhere in support of Palestine during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
U of G for Palestine formed in January. It is a group of U of G staff, students and faculty who are in support of Palestine.
The group is behind the encampment. It started being built at 2 a.m. today. There are about 20 tents and 15 people, as of this morning, at Branion Plaza being called The People’s Plaza for Palestine by the group.
“We are not going to stop until we have our demands met,” said Waida Mirzada, member and media liaison of U of G for Palestine. A list of demands has been posted on the group's Instagram page.
The U of G released a statement this afternoon about the "unauthorized" encampment. Before the encampment was launched, the university received a divestment submission and is currently reviewing it. The people who made the request were invited to provide additional input to the finance committee.
The Campus Safety Office is monitoring the encampment and has been in contact with the people involved to remind them of the university's policies.
People part of the encampment are welcomed to come and go as they please.
A barrier has been placed around the encampment with a variety of signs hung up in support of Palestine. People are wearing black and white keffiyehs, scarves that have become associated with Palestinians.
What prompted students to start the encampment was the information they received about the university’s investments, said Firoza Farooqi, member and media liaison of U of G for Palestine. Investments in arms, defence and military contractors linked to Israel.
“We have a strong community of people who have been in support for this particular cause,” said Mirzada.
Local union CUPE 3913 encompasses employee groups on the U of G campus. It released a statement of support for U of G for Palestine on social media today.
“We unequivocally stand against the atrocities taking place and we support our members’ rights to protest. We are here in the event that consequences are imposed by the university administration,” said the statement.
Independent Jewish Voices Guelph also released a statement today. “The students involved in the encampment are thoughtful, motivated, and principled, and are taking necessary actions to end our university community’s complicity in this genocide,” it said.
Since U of G for Palestine formed the group has mobilized, protested, and has tried to talk with the university’s administration about its concerns, said Mirzada.
“The big part of what sustains us is community support and we have a lot of it,” said Farooqi. Coffee, water, and other supplies have been dropped off this morning. The group put out a list of materials it needs like stakes, tarps, rain ponchos, masks, portable chargers and sandbags.
She’s grateful for the continued support. “What we're actually doing here is we're showing to the university that we're occupying this space until they meet our demands, because we realize that anything that we've done up until now, they're not listening to us,” said Farooqi.
A report was created by U of G for Palestine based on findings it received from a freedom of information request from the university.
One of the demands it has of the U of G is for it to take up the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association’s definition of anti-Palestinian racism into its system. The definition is “anti-Palestinian racism is a form of anti-Arab racism that silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes, defames or dehumanizes Palestinians or their narratives.”
“That looks like actually paying attention to how Palestinian students are treated on this campus and recognizing that they are systemically oppressed within these institutions,” said Farooqi.
She said students have been harassed on campus just for being Palestinian.
“We're also just so frustrated,” she said.
“So it's really us going against an institution that is structurally gaslighting us,” said Mirzada. She said the university pretends like nothing is happening and nothing is wrong.
If the U of G put out a statement about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and communicated with students Farooqi said at this point it wouldn’t be enough.
Mirzada expects more people to show up at the encampment this afternoon and there might be informal speeches and a rally.