McGill University encampment: judge expected to deliver injunction decision Tuesday

Pro-Palestinian protesters at McGill University have become 'occupiers' living in a fortified and barricaded mini-village, a lawyer for the Montreal school argued on Monday as he asked for an injunction to dismantle the more than two-week-old encampment on its downtown campus.

Pro-Palestinian protesters at McGill University have become "occupiers" living in a fortified and barricaded mini-village, a lawyer for the Montreal school argued on Monday as he asked for an injunction to dismantle the more than two-week-old encampment on its downtown campus.

As lawyers for the encampment members defended the right to protest, McGill lawyer Jacques Darche maintained the encampment presents a health and safety risk and is preventing McGill from holding convocation ceremonies on its property.

He told Quebec Superior Court that while universities respect freedom of expression, those who have pitched dozens of tents on its lower field are not mere protesters. "The proper term, in our view, is occupiers or campers," he said.

He said there's a difference between protesting, "with signs and slogans and groups of people, and camping in an encampment, fenced in with a quasi-permanent structure.”

In a judicial application dated Friday, McGill says the encampment is a "security, safety and public health risk" that has escalated tensions on campus. In its filing, McGill cited the "fierce verbal exchanges" between protesters and counter-protesters earlier this month, barrels of possible "human waste" on site, possible fire code breaches and the encampment's potential as a "magnet" for further clashes.

Lawyers representing different groups of protesters countered that there's no proof the encampment is dangerous, nor that there is an urgent need to dismantle it.

Julius Grey, a lawyer representing some of the encampment members, said the right to protest is fundamental and that universities have traditionally been treated differently than other private property when it comes to demonstrations.