McGill encampment: Quebec judge denies injunction request to dismantle site

The ruling from the Quebec judge comes after McGill University filed an application late last week to remove the encampment from its campus in downtown Montreal.

A Quebec Superior Court judge rejected the request Wednesday for an injunction to dismantle a weeks-old encampment by pro-Palestinian activists at McGill University.

The ruling comes after McGill filed an application late last week to remove protesters from its campus in downtown Montreal.

Justice Marc St-Pierre wrote in his decision that McGill failed to prove an urgent need to take down the encampment. The case raises questions of fundamental and conflicting rights that are too complex to be decided quickly and require a deeper analysis, he said.

The encampment began April 27 amid a wave of similar demonstrations across universities in the United Status over the Israel-Hamas conflict. Since then, dozens of tents have been pitched on McGill’s lower field.

The protesters are demanding McGill divest from companies that they say are “complicit” in Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. They want the school to cut ties with Israeli institutions.

In court Monday, McGill lawyers argued that the encampment presents a health and safety risk and is preventing the school from holding convocation ceremonies on its property.

In his decision, St-Pierre rejected those arguments. There have been no “serious or violent” incidents on campus since protesters first set up on school grounds and the university already made arrangements to hold convocation elsewhere.

Meanwhile, lawyers representing different groups of activists defended the right to protest. They countered there is no proof the encampment is dangerous and there is no urgent need to remove it.