Achi news desk-
A group of concerned faculty, staff, students and alumni at the University of Calgary have written to the school’s administration regarding their response to a protest held earlier this month.
The letter, addressed to UCalgary president Ed McCauley and the school’s leadership team, expresses the group’s “tremendous disappointment and dismay” at the decision to bring in Calgary police to clear a pro-Palestinian protest from the campus.
“We, the undersigned faculty, staff, and members of the UCalgary community, view the protest as a ‘public-facing global education project,’ and the actions of the university administration as a betrayal of the values ​​of higher education as spaces for critical thinking, academic freedom. , and a commitment to equity, justice and social transformation,” read the letter, which has been signed by 623 members of the UCalgary community.
On May 9, protesters gathered on campus and the school requested assistance from the Calgary Police Service to control the peaceful demonstration.
As time progressed, police and administrators learned that the demonstrators did not intend to leave university property and intended to camp in UCalgary for the long term.
By 11:15 pm, following repeated requests by the police for the protesters to leave the campus, officers used a variety of lethal means, such as rubber bullets, tear gas and flash tanks to clear the demonstration.
The letter, dated May 21, calls the police “brutal force against young students (who were) protesting peacefully.”
It does not claim that any protesters were injured in the operation and, on May 14, Calgary Police Chief Mark Neufeld told CTV News that he had no formal reports made.
Neufeld said the school’s decision to request help in clearing the protest was “reasonable and very wise” considering what UCalgary was seeing at other post-secondary institutions around the world.
The Alberta government has since said it would ask the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, the province’s police watchdog, to investigate the police action on May 9.
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The letter goes on to ask the school to conduct its own independent investigation into the protest and its own policies regarding security on campus.
It also asks the administration to meet with protest leaders to discuss their concerns and “commit to a policy of non-violence and minimal police presence when handling peaceful demonstrations.”
In addition, he wants to see all the charges against the protesters arrested in the event dropped.
CTV News has contacted CPS for details on any charges that have been imposed.
