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 Student, police view damage
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Montreal police in riot gear used tear gas and pepper spray to control a crowd of several hundred demonstrators protesting the appearance of Benjamin Netanyahu at Concordia University's Henry F. Hall Building Monday, where the former Prime Minister of Israel was scheduled to give a speech.
Forty minutes after the event was scheduled to begin, Canada-Israel Committee President Tommy Hecht announced that he had some "very sad news." The speech was cancelled due to safety concerns shared by Netanyahu's security and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. After the speech was cancelled, Netanyahu was whisked in a black limousine to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Sherbrooke Street to give a press conference.
"Ils ont peur de la vérité," said Netanyahu. "The rioters... have failed, because through you I'm going to speak to three million Montrealers and 30 million Canadians."
While two metal detectors were set up at the main entrance to the Hall Building, where ticket holders entered, the side entrance on Mackay Street was open for students attending morning classes. Protestors trying to prevent the speech "streamed through the doors" before, during and after the violence, said Amir, a Concordia student who did not give his last name. "I saw a barricade, but I cut across."
Ticket holders going through the front entrance were confronted by angry crowds of protesters.
"People felt really threatened," said McGill student Elliot Glussenberg. "Several rabbis walking in were spat on."
According to ticket holders and protesters, a security guard was stationed at a table set up in front of the escalators leading from the mezzanine to the lobby, where a dozen Swiss Army knives were confiscated from spectators before they entered the auditorium. But the cordon did not hold, as protestors inside the Hall Building crowded onto the two lobby escalators. They had assembled before the speech, scheduled to begin at noon and postponed several times.
"We held our ground on the escalators, shouting slogans," said Amir. "The cops held the first two steps of the escalators. There was an initial push by the police, trying to push us up. We managed to hold on. Then some people in the crowd were causing havoc, and the police got tough. They were pushing up on the right side, hitting people hard. One guy fell down and the police started hitting him on the back with batons. He was resisting, and two or three cops tied his hands behind his back."
Around this time, according to Amir and other demonstrators, people began throwing chairs, tables and newspapers from the mezzanine onto the police below. One protester was using a fire extinguisher to hold back police.
When a window on de Maisonneuve was broken, police used pepper spray to block protesters trying to enter the lobby. Then tear gas was fired into the crowd.
Ahmed El-Badri, a Concordia computer science student from Gaza, was protesting in front of the Hall Building when he felt the gas.
"I gave my kafeyah to someone who was choking," said El-Badri. "She really needed it, so I used my bandanna to breathe."
While the violence escalated outside, Hecht told those waiting for Netanyahu inside the auditorium that a riot had taken place outside and urged everyone to stay in their seats. MUC police kept the agitated spectators inside.
"A group of people who deny freedom of speech have prevented a former Israeli Prime Minister from coming here today," said Hecht. "This is an insult to the Jewish community—to Canadian democracy."
"We were all trapped in the room because of the tear gas and protestors in the hall," said Glussenberg. "People felt really threatened." Student leaders speaking over the microphone called the attendance of so many a show of solidarity, despite Netanyahu's absence.
"I got tear gas in my eyes," said Concordia student Mara Wolman, who was in the auditorium. "They turned down the ventilation in the room to stop the gas from coming in. I was scared off my ass."
A Concordia history student, who called herself T., was sitting in protest by the doors on
Bishop Street right after the tear gas canister was fired.
"We were chanting, and then someone knocked on the door and couldn't get out, since the fire exits were apparently locked," she said. "Had someone not opened the door, they wouldn't have been able to get out."
El-Badri claimed that tickets to Netanyahu's speech were given to a hand-picked audience. He came to protest what he calls Netanyahu's war crimes.
"Netanyahu is an oppressor to Palestinian human rights. He's a war criminal," said El-Badri. "I tried to get a ticket a month ahead and I couldn't, simply because of my background."
Alex Kemeny of Hillel McGill pointed out that many signs were posted with contact information, and that while some tickets were set aside for organizers and friends, the rest were given out on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Kemeny said that the atmosphere is charged at Concordia.
"You don't want to go to Concordia if you're Jewish," said Kemeny. "We're outnumbered by Arabs there."
Netanyahu is no stranger to protests. In November 2000, demonstrations prevented him from giving a speech at the University of California at Berkeley.
