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Protesters chant outside a pro-Palestinian camp set up on the University of Toronto campus on May 2 in Toronto.Christopher Katsarov/Canadian Press
Sunday night, I took a walk around the self-proclaimed “Circle of the Palestinian People.” King's College Circle, in the heart of the University of Toronto's downtown campus, was a vibrant place. The administration has fenced off the area to prevent it from becoming an encampment, but that fence is now serving the protesters, who have been forced to block an area inside an area the size of several soccer fields. It is now possible to manage and protect other stadiums. Outside.
People are constantly coming and going in front of the northern gate. Almost everyone is wearing a mask. There are masked guards placed at intervals inside the fence, and more masked people outside. When I circled the perimeter at 11 p.m., protesters were busy stapling blue plastic tarps to the fence to create a 6-foot-tall privacy screen.
It's basically a gated community.
This protest and others like it are the latest manifestation of the long-running BDS movement, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israel movement. The aim is to persuade governments, businesses and universities to put economic pressure on Israel. The model is the South African secession movement during the apartheid era of the 1980s. Protesters want to use economic means against Israel, and they almost always refer to Israel as an “apartheid” state.
According to a May 2 post on UofT Occupy for Palestine's X, the account is only a month old. their demands That is, the university makes all short-term and long-term investments public. Withdraw from “all direct and indirect investments that sustain Israeli apartheid, occupation, and illegal Palestinian settlements.” and sever ties with Israeli universities that “support or support the Israeli state's apartheid policies and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
The group, which claims to be running the Te University camp, said: “Students will continue to occupy the Palestinian People's Circle until the #uoft government publicly promises to immediately meet all three of our demands. “Deaf,” he says.
Some defend the rise in campus occupations as an exercise of the right to free speech. But that misunderstands what free speech is and why it is a cornerstone of constitutional rights.
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Freedom of speech, especially the protection of the expression of unpopular ideas, strengthens free, democratic and tolerant societies. But the appropriation of the free speech label for things that are not speech or that involve actions that violate the rights of others undermines our free, democratic, and tolerant society.
You may have noticed that the U of T encampment and other similar activities are rarely referred to as “peaceful protests” in the mainstream media. That's understandable, because they are not peaceful protests.
Signs and banners expressing participants' opinions are posted on fences and inside tents at the University of Tennessee campground. There are no calls for the release of Israeli civilian hostages. There are no calls for negotiating a two-state solution. There is no criticism of Hamas. There is no Israeli recognition.
Aside from some surprising indications from left-wing Iranian groups opposed to both Israel and its main adversary, the Islamic Republic of Iran, one of the posters read, “Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.” has been written. Islamic fundamentalism is not Islamophobia” – the rest is straight out of a cosplay collection of leftist tropes. The letters on the fence express the hope of victory and liberation through uprising and revolution in Palestine and beyond.
It's not my taste, and probably not yours either, but that doesn't matter. Canadian law and tradition deeply believe in free speech.
Do you think Israel is a criminal apartheid state? Does that mean that the land “from the river to the sea”, including all of Israel, should be “liberated”? Does that mean Israel shouldn't exist? I disagree, but again, it's not legally relevant. In Canada, you have the right to express almost any idea.
Why not march through the streets with a banner calling for capital divestment from Israel? Or vice versa, investing in and supporting Israel? Are you planning a protest to demand drug decriminalization? Or drug recriminalization? I will protect your rights either way, and more importantly, I will also protect the law. Police will help hold dozens of loud, legal pro-Palestinian marches through the streets of Toronto and other cities, as they have done since October 7th.
But what happens if you park your car in the middle of a private or public space, set up camp, and refuse to leave “until your demands are met”?
How is that different from Occupation of Ottawa in 2022?
Imagine if a Christian campus group took over King's College Circle and said the circle would continue until the university stopped funding related to abortion. Should they be removed? Why? If your answer is that you have to go because their opinion is wrong, then you have freedom of speech in reverse. This is Canada, not the People's Republic of China.
Whether right or left, pro-Palestinian or anti-vaccine, the legal problems associated with the occupation are not what its participants are advocating. What they're doing is occupying space and holding it hostage.
What does that have to do with freedom of speech? there is nothing.
