Pro-Palestinian demonstrators will end their encampment at UQAM this evening

Photo: Valerian Mazataud Le Devoir The pro-Palestine encampment, at the Coeur des Sciences at UQAM, will be lifted this Thursday. Activists said they were pleased with a resolution passed by the university's board of trustees regarding the situation in the Palestinian territory and Israel.

The Canadian Press

Published on June 6

• Quebec

The pro-Palestinian demonstrators who have camped on the campus of the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) for almost a month confirm that they will leave on Thursday, but assure that their fight for the liberation of the people Palestinian is not over.

The activists announced last week their intention to lift their camp set up in the courtyard of the Pierre-Dansereau Science Complex since May 12 “by June 6 at the latest”.

They said they were satisfied with a resolution adopted by the university's board of directors concerning the situation in the Palestinian territory and in Israel, the broad outlines of which were approved by the studies committee on Tuesday.

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In this resolution, UQAM committed to “ensuring that none of its current and future academic agreements, including those with Israeli universities, come into conflict” with certain principles, including the desire to work by demonstrating a firm commitment to peace and respect for international humanitarian law.

The resolution also asked the UQAM Foundation to ensure that it did not have no direct investment in funds or companies that profit from armaments.

In a statement released Thursday morning, the activist group “Al-Aqsa Popular University of UQAM” (UPA-UQAM) mentioned that the resolution is “far from satisfactory,” as it does not call for a complete boycott of Israeli universities.

He maintains, however, that the encampment “made it possible to make UQAM responsible for its actions by placing it in the spotlight of public opinion.”

“Despite the end of the camp, we will continue the fight, since we cannot be satisfied with performative declarations giving a misleading image of a so-called commitment of the university”, argued Sara Hamadi, a student and camper at UPA-UQAM .

The last activists will therefore leave the camp Thursday evening, during a demonstration organized to demand that the government of Quebec abolish the Bureau du Québec à Tel- Aviv.