Pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the University of Toronto, facing court orders to dismantle their weeks-old encampment, started to take down tents and tarps on Wednesday morning, though vowed to continue their campus activism.
Despite moves to disassemble the camp, demonstrators said they still planned to hold a rally on Wednesday afternoon hours ahead of a deadline to leave the area known as King’s College Circle.
“We know that police are going to be here, and we will sort of have to see what happens,” said Erin Mackey, an encampment spokesperson.
An Ontario judge issued an injunction against the encampment Tuesday, authorizing police to step in if demonstrators don’t leave the site by 6 p.m. Wednesday. Police have said they would enforce the order but would not disclose any operational plans.
Toronto police officers were seen posting the court order on the encampment fence Wednesday morning, as Palestinian flags waved overhead. An Irish rebel song echoed from the encampment entrance as demonstrators wheeled out supplies in wagons and yellowed patches of grass dotted the lawn where tents once stood.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Markus Koehnen’s decision, issued Tuesday, says while there is no evidence the encampment participants have been violent or antisemitic, the demonstration has taken away the university’s ability to control what happens in King’s College Circle.
Koehnen says property owners generally decide what happens on their property, and if protesters can take that power for themselves, there is nothing to stop a stronger group from coming and taking over the space from the current protesters, leading to chaos.
University president Meric Gertler welcomed the decision and said the order prevents one group from taking over the shared space to promote a view while depriving others of sharing an opposing view.
The protesters set up camp on May 2 and previously said they would stay put until the school agrees to their demands, which include disclosing and divesting from investments in companies profiting from Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
The court ruling said the university has procedures in place to consider divestment requests and has offered the protesters an expedited process.
Protesters, however, have said they have no confidence in the process, since it rests on recommendations to the university president that he can either follow or ignore. They note Gertler declined to follow a 2016 recommendation to divest from fossil fuels, only to initiate his own process years later that may result in divestment by 2030 — 16 years after the request was made.
“The protesters submit that Gaza does not have 16 years to wait,” Tuesday’s court decision read.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 3, 2024