Canada

Archived version

According to recordings and documents, presidents at universities of McGill and Victoria made false claims about pro-Palestinian student actions and spread misinformation about violence that students were not responsible for. In another case, a professor at University of Toronto conferred with police after a student made a short presentation about the Israeli massacre of Palestinians in class.

In public statements that were frequently amplified by the media, university presidents accused encampments of being unsafe spaces and spreading hatred. But in spite of the heightened surveillance, administrators from Victoria to Toronto have still shared no evidence of their public claims.

Students say the misinformation spread by universities undermined public support for their demands—mainly, for universities to disclose and divest from companies that are arming Israeli aggression against Palestinians, and to cut academic ties with Israeli universities that are aiding the occupation of Palestinian territories. But students say setting up encampments and escalating their demands through office occupations did bring administrators to the table, after other forms of protest had fallen on deaf ears.