Lawyers for intervening parties noted that the scope of the injunction applies to thousands of other protesters and infringes on fundamental freedoms.
A Quebec judge has dismissed a request by McGill University that would have continued to block pro-Palestinian protests around the school’s campus.
In a hearing Friday, the university’s lawyers played footage from an Oct. 12 demonstration in which a protester says: “The injunction is not going to stop us. Emails are not going to stop us. The intifada will not stop.”
McGill lawyer Doug Mitchell argued that “there is a legitimate fear of future activity which will be aimed at disrupting classroom activity, harassing and intimidating individual students, staff and faculty.”
But Superior Court Judge Gary Morrison ruled Monday that the university had not demonstrated urgency. He said the situation now is not the same as it was on Oct. 8 because the “week of rage” has passed.
“The question, therefore, is whether the past conduct of SPHR-M and its more recent declarations of an intifada and a revolution, with images from prior events, are sufficient to constitute urgency. In the court’s view, it is not,” Morrison wrote.
SPHR-M representatives were not present at Friday’s hearing, but lawyers for several other associations were. Lawyers representing the Association of McGill Professors of Education, Palestinian and Jewish Unity and other intervening parties noted that the scope of the injunction applies to thousands of protesters beyond SPHR-M and infringes on their fundamental freedoms, particularly the right to protest. They argued the injunction creates a chilling effect and that protests inevitably create some disturbance.
Over a dozen gallery members wearing kaffiyehs sat in on Friday’s hearing in support of SPHR-M.
The Gazette reached out to SPHR-M for comment on the judgment, but did not receive a response before publication. The group posted screenshots of the judgment on its Instagram account, writing: “McGill is horrible at their own repression.”