UQAM students join McGill and set up second pro-Palestinian encampment in Montreal

A second pro-Palestinian encampment has been erected at a Montreal university. UQAM students are standing with those at McGill. (Stephane Giroux, CTV News)

A student group at UQAM announced on Sunday that a second pro-Palestinian encampment is being erected in Montreal.

The Université Populaire Al-Aqsa at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) said in a news release they would follow McGill, Ottawa, Toronto and other universities in Canada "in solidarity with the Palestinian people's struggle against apartheid, genocide and Israeli colonial violence."

The group set up an encampment on President-Kennedy Avenue near Place des Arts and is demanding McGill withdraw its recent request for a court injunction against protesters at the school.

In addition, the UQAM protesters want:

• To implement an academic boycott at UQAM,
• The public disclosure of all collaborations and links with Israel,
• The abolition of the Quebec-Israel office, and
• The abrogation of all inter-state or inter-institutional agreements with Israel.

The McGill protesters are calling for an end to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, and for the university to divest any financial holdings in companies linked to the war effort.

• READ MORE: A look at the divestment demands by McGill University protesters

“We are addressing UQAM, but also the Quebec state and the Canadian state to take action to end their collaboration and complicity with the rogue state,” said UPA-UQAM spokesperson Leila Khaled.

The students named the camp Université Populaire Al-Aqsa de l'UQAM "in tribute to one of the 12 universities in the Gaza Strip destroyed by Israel's 'educide', the organized and systematic destruction of the Palestinian education and university system," the news release reads.

McGill's encampment was erected on April 27, and organizers said on Saturday that they have no intention of leaving despite the university's request for an injunction.