VANCOUVER – British Columbia’s human rights commissioner is looking on universities and schools to protect the rights of scholars and workers collaborating in “peaceful encampments,” saying she’s apprehensive about individuals who “speak up in solidarity with Gaza” being penalized.
Kasari Govender says in a press release that campus communities have a proper to “peaceful and lawful assembly and free expression.”
Govender says there’s no place in B.C. for antisemitism, anti-Palestinian racism, Islamophobia or public incitement and, so long as these limits aren’t breached, universities and schools ought to protect the rights of protesters.
Pro-Palestinian protest camps sprang up at a number of B.C. campuses final week, together with at the University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria.
Protest organizers have mentioned they need universities to help the Palestinian trigger by divesting from firms linked to Israel, becoming a member of a “global academic boycott” of Israeli faculties and publicly condemning Israeli actions in Gaza.
Govender says that how decision-makers cope with the coed protests shall be a take a look at of the “strength of our democracy.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed May 6, 2024.