This report was prepared by an anonymous student at Queen’s University.
On May 10, pro-Palestinian students, faculty, staff, and community members of Kingston, Ontario organized a sit-in protest at Queen’s University, calling on the university’s leadership to divest from the ongoing genocide in Palestine.
Queen’s encampment
The divestment demands include cutting ties with Israeli academic institutions, Israeli companies funding the genocide in Palestine, as well as those supplying arms to the Israeli military. Later in the day, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) at Queen’s University announced that the protest was to become a one-night encampment. This announcement was followed by the setting up of tents in the Reem’s Hall (formerly Richardson Hall) courtyard. With this announcement, Queen’s now has its own Palestinian liberation student encampment, titled the Liberated Zone, similar to those being established in universities around the world, including University of Toronto, McGill University, University of Western Ontario and the University of British Columbia. The encampment is currently going into its sixth day.
From 8:00 in the morning onwards on May 10 around fifty protesters gathered and set up tents, posters, and a library with resources on Palestine and student activism. In honour of three-year-old Reem Nabhan who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, the protesters renamed Richardson Hall as “Reem’s Hall” and put up posters that read “Let Gaza Live,” “Queen’s Divest from Death.” Red handprints placed on the walls of Reem’s Hall as well as sidewalk chalk that reads, “Israel bombs, Queen’s pays, how many kids did you kill today?” served as harrowing reminders of Israeli atrocities in Gaza and Rafah.
The first day of the protest saw peaceful demonstrations, chants such as “free Palestine”, “divest from genocide”, and community members enriching their knowledge on the issue through speeches, a teach-in on Palestine’s history during the day and a film screening of Farha at night. Protesters however, faced intimidation and harassment from police as well as Queen’s authorities and security personnel during their peaceful demonstrations.
The encampment was set up on the day of a Board of Trustees meeting. The opening of that meeting was scheduled at 7pm. This open session was shifted to 5:50pm due to “circumstances beyond control”. Protesters took to the courtyard of Reem’s Hall as well as three floors of the connecting buildings to attract the attention of the trustees and senior administrators.
After the meeting, senior administrators such as Queen’s University provost Matthew Evans and others were faced with chants and heckling from protesters. Security personnel pushed and shoved protesters from the door, a protester was thrown to the ground by their hair as captured in these videos by The Queen’s Journal. Among those seen in the video pushing and brutalizing students included Chris Scott, director of campus security and emergency services, Jamie Goose, Security Supervisor and Joel Keenleyside, manager, security operations. The videos also document an elderly protester and community member being shoulder checked by a senior administrator.
The protesters were not to be deterred as an enthusiastic group stayed overnight in tents, equipped with contributions of food and supplies from community members. Principal Patrick Deane released a since edited message and email to the Queen’s community regarding the encampment, declaring the encampment as “largely peaceful”, yet the chants of the protesters as aggressive. Queen’s University Faculty Observer’s Network, an organization formed by pro-Palestine faculty, has condemned Principal Patrick Deane’s complicit position in genocide and lack of divestment efforts in their media release.
On the following day, May 11, protesters gathered outside Robert Sutherland Hall at 10am where an Ontario Liberal Party Regional Meeting was taking place, only to be met with further harassment by security personnel and police. During both demonstrations, senior administrators and security took photos and called students by name as intimidation tactics, constantly circling the venue. At the time of writing this report, unknown parties have taken away a poster from the entrance of Reem’s Hall courtyard that read “Liberated Zone”.
Challenging settler-colonialism
The encampment, spearheaded by the SPHR at Queen’s, was attended and supported by campus and community organizations including Queen’s Faculty and Staff for Palestine, Queen’s Apartheid Divest Coalition, Mutual Aid Katarowki Kingston, Independent Jewish Voices, PSAC 901, Alternative Jewish Community Katarokwi, and the Queer Muslim Collective among others. A Liberation Library with books, pamphlets and valuable resources on Palestine has been set up by Blue Heron Books and Zines, a Kingston based volunteer-run library for radical, anarchist and anti-authoritarian books.
Solidarity events such as teach-ins, the Friday prayer, shabbat, sharing of food, a movie screening, and other community experiences has turned the encampment into a space for bonding and collective liberation for pro-Palestine activists and community members. Meeting and mingling of different perspectives sparked conversations on the importance of Indigenous solidarity with Palestine, Canada’s complicity in genocide, and the ongoing settler colonial atrocities around the world.
Divest from death
According to a spreadsheet compiled by the Queen’s SPHR and the Queen’s Apartheid Divest Coalition, Queen’s University invests $150 million in the Israeli occupation. Other demands by the two organizations include immediately cutting ties with all corporations which profit from human rights violation in Palestine, divest over $150 million in endowment holdings profiting from Israeli apartheid, disclose investment holdings especially in corporations on the BDS list and weapons manufacturing, and end all targeted surveillance of Palestinian and Palestinian allied students, faculty and staff. The organizations and signatories of their petition also call for a full academic boycott of Israeli universities Queen’s has exchange partnership with, which are Tel Aviv University and Ben Guiron University of the Negev.
The encampment is set to continue through Nakba Day, Wednesday, May 15. A Nakba Day rally was held on May 11, which was enthusiastically attended by community members, faculty, students, and staff to demand an end to Israel’s apartheid, to lift the siege on Gaza and Rafah and for a free Palestine.
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