A defaced statue of Queen Victoria outside a new pro-Palestinian encampment set up in Square Victoria in downtown Montreal on June 22.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
A new pro-Palestinian encampment has popped up in downtown Montreal’s Ville-Marie borough.
Members of the Divest for Palestine Collective issued a statement on Saturday saying participants had set up camp in Victoria Square near the office of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Quebec, the provincial pension fund manager.
Montreal police confirmed protesters began barricading themselves in Victoria Square using construction materials at around 1:20 p.m.
Const. Véronique Dubuc says police are monitoring the situation but have made no arrests.
The protesters say their encampment is modelled on those that have cropped up on university campuses across Canada and the United States, adding they’re asking the pension fund to cut ties with Israeli institutions it accuses of being complicit in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
A pro-Palestinian encampment has occupied the lower field of McGill University’s downtown campus in Montreal since late April despite two injunction requests to have it removed – one by McGill students and another by the university itself.
McGill announced earlier this week it was ending negotiations with pro-Palestinian protesters who have demanded the university disclose and cut ties with Israel.
Elsewhere in the city, however, pro-Palestinian protesters at Université du Québec à Montréal dismantled their encampment after the university agreed to many of their demands, including disclosing its annual investments and refraining from holding investments in companies profiting from weapons manufacturing.