Montreal police announced an investigation into the McGill encampment’s “revolutionary” youth summer camp with lessons on “Islamic resistance” and a poster showcasing Palestinian militants brandishing machine guns.
Montreal police announced their investigation at a Monday afternoon press conference.
Montreal police inspector David Shane said the encampment poster in question, “which invites young people to take part in workshops at the camp,” is “a cause of concern, as it features an image of an assault rifle.”
“We’re investigating the matter and we’ve been in contact with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” he noted. “We understand the fears this publication may arouse.”
As previously reported by True North, a “Youth Summer Program” will run from June 17 to July 12 at the McGill encampment, a place the organizers now refer to as “Tiohtià:ke Popular University.”
The camp is being organized by Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights McGill and Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights Concordia.
The camp’s first week, starting Monday, will be all about “the history of Palestinian resistance,” and will feature a lesson on so-called “Islamic resistance.” The second week’s theme is set to be “the ongoing Nakba.” Nakba refers to the Palestinian experience when Israel was created in 1948.
The third week will be about the “different fronts of the movement,” with the fourth week covering “media after Oct. 7.”
Several prominent Canadian politicians have condemned the summer camp.
In a social media statement, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called the organizers’ glorification of Hamas an “abomination” and called for the camp to be shut down.
“This glorification of the genocidal terrorism of Hamas is an abomination,” said Poilievre. “Antisemitism has become a plague on Canadian university campuses. Shut it down.”
Liberal Immigration Minister and Montreal-area MP Marc Miller also denounced the summer camp as hateful.
Miller’s colleague, Liberal MP Anthony Housefather also joined in the condemnation.
Others including Quebec’s CAQ higher education minister, Pascal Dery, called the camp “very disturbing, even alarming.”
“The situation is escalating, and it has to stop. Freedom of expression is one thing, but this is provocation, explicit incitement to violence, even indoctrination,” she wrote in French. “I repeat: this camp must be dismantled.”
While Dery and her boss, Premier Francois Legault, have called on the encampment to be dismantled, the police have opted not to clear it with McGill having failed in its efforts to get an injunction.
The “revolutionary” summer camp was also covered by international news outlets, including British newspaper the Guardian and Israel’s Jerusalem Post.
In a statement to True North Friday, McGill University said the anti-Israel summer camp was “only the latest escalation in SPHR’s long-standing strategy of intimidation and fear.”
McGill added that “imagery evoking violence is not a tool of peaceful expression or assembly” and that the university reached out to municipal, provincial, and federal public safety authorities to flag SPHR McGill’s post and other recent activities “as matters of national security.”
The university also said it would increase the presence of security staff near the encampment and elsewhere on campus, and continue to pursue legal action against SPHR and internal disciplinary measures.
SPHR McGill previously openly praised the Oct. 7 attack against Israel as “heroic” and “monumental” while celebrating the launching of rockets and taking of hostages.
SPHR also posted a graphic featuring a photo of a man smashing windows on the eve of the anniversary of Kristallnacht, a 1938 wave of violent riots against Jewish businesses, synagogues and homes in Nazi Germany.
In December, SPHR was ordered to stop using the McGill name. The group has, however, chosen not to comply and continues to use the university’s name to this day.
