‘Despite all these threats being made, we remain,’ organizer says of encampment
“Having been threatened by the university with academic sanctions, including suspension and expulsion, having been threatened with arrest and police violence — despite all of this, despite all these threats being made, we remain,” said Erin Mackey, one of the encampment organizers.
“We’ve been clear from the very beginning that by virtue of being here, it does not warrant the University of Toronto calling the police on their own students,” she added.
Professors speak out against court action
"So I say to president Gertler: ‘Not in my name. If you think authoritarian responses to peaceful protest in a democratic country is appropriate, that’s on you.’ "
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Protesters at a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Toronto said Tuesday they will stay at the site despite threats of discipline from the school and a looming legal action.
The University of Toronto is asking the courts to authorize police action to remove protesters who refuse orders to leave the encampment, which was set up on campus earlier this month.
The protesters have said they are prepared to fight back with their own legal team and refused to leave the site, ignoring a Monday morning deadline set in a trespass notice issued last week.
Richard Moon, a University of Windsor law professor whose areas of expertise include freedom of expression, said injunction requests before the courts have to be decided “on a kind of balance of probabilities,” taking into account the interests and rights of both parties.
Moon said that, in his view, U of T’s court filing does not “clearly demonstrate” that antisemitic hate speech has been coming from the encampment itself, or that protesters are blocking entry to buildings or restricting other people’s movements across the campus.
A Quebec judge ruled Monday that safety measures such as removing obstructions and allowing the fire department to visit the camp to make sure it’s safe need to be put in place, and that doing so won’t infringe on the encampment members’ right to protest.
The original article contains 1,173 words, the summary contains 225 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!