Western University issues warning to dug-in protesters

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Two months into a dug-in encampment on its campus, Western University has given pro-Palestinian protesters what appears to be an ultimatum to clear out by the end of the weekend.

In a statement posted online, Western president Alan Shepard said the encampment that’s been in place since May 8 falls “well outside” the bounds of peaceful protest but the university will not pursue disciplinary action against participating students or employees if the protesters “voluntarily remove” their encampment within days.

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The implication left is that the school will take disciplinary action against participants if the camp is not dismantled by the weekend, although the statement did not expressly specify that timing.

“If a student or an employee engaged in violence, property damage, building barricades, unauthorized entry into buildings, harassment or discrimination, they will be held accountable,” the president said.

The move comes after growing impatience expressed by Western in a series of statements about the protest over the last eight weeks, including late last week when it warned protesters against building a “more permanent” base on campus. The encampment, with about 30 people sleeping there nightly, was fortified when protesters brought in building materials, alarming university officials who also accused the group of “egregious abuse” of a nearby washroom.

The question is, will the protest group, the Western Divestment Coalition, heed the warning?

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A handful of protesters eating lunch together in the heart of the encampment Thursday afternoon gave no indication that they would be packing up by the end of this weekend but said they were “really disappointed” by the most recent statement from Shepard.

“It’s basically a repeat of their previous statements,” said protest representative Leila, a third-year Western undergraduate student who would not disclose her last name. She said the revised proposal from Western does not offer any “concrete action” to meeting the demands of protesters.

“We’re looking for actual commitment and actions, not promises that they might look into it,” she said.

Besides the university saying they were looking at the actions taken by other Canadian universities in response to their respective encampments, Leila said the university hasn’t given protest representatives “any indication of what they might do next.”

She said representatives from the encampment would be putting out an official response to Western’s statement “soon.”

Pro-Palestinian campus protests that broke out across North America this spring, first in the United States and then in Canada, in the fallout of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza have largely subsided, including at the University of Toronto. Protesters there, facing a court injunction to clear out or risk being arrested, dismantled their two-month encampment ahead of a Wednesday night deadline.

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In Waterloo, meanwhile, the University of Waterloo has also turned to the courts as it deals with a protest encampment that began in mid-May, filing a $1.5-million lawsuit against the protesters and alleging their presence has cost the school “significant harm and damages,” including costs for property repairs and security, and negatively affected its ability to attract and retain students and faculty.

Most of the campus protesters, including at Western, have called for schools to sever financial ties to Israel, including investments in companies linked to the conflict. They’ve also decried the humanitarian toll of the conflict, now nearing the nine-month mark, in which thousands have died since a Hamas terrorist attack on Israel last fall killed 1,200 people and led to the seizure of more than 200 hostages.

Israel responded with a military offensive against Hamas in Gaza, where the death toll has been estimated at more than 35,000.

In his statement, Shepard said Western has met three times in recent days with student representatives of the protest coalition in a bid to end the encampment and offered a revised set of commitments to the group in a bid to do so.

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