This article was first written in mid-August for issue #8 of Communist Revolution. Since then, the campaign for a student strike for Palestine has begun, and in just the first week of September, everything in this article has been borne out.

On Sept. 3 comrade Francis was seized by campus police, handcuffed, and detained, for the “crime” of leafleting for a student strike. He was accused of raising “safety concerns” despite the fact that he wasn’t advocating for anything unsafe, only an end the genocide. He was later released, since there was no basis for charging him with anything. The comrades were not intimidated, and are holding a protest at the campus security offices today.

On other campuses too, activists have been targeted and harassed by campus security. This proves that our democratic rights exist only so long as we’re willing to defend them.

A key demand of the Student Strike for Palestine is to end the repression of the Palestine solidarity movement. To defend ourselves, we must unite and fight back!

The Palestinian solidarity movement has been viciously slandered and repressed by the entire Canadian capitalist establishment. In the media, in the courts, and on the campuses, those who fight against the genocide of the Palestinan people are silenced and intimidated.

Students in particular have faced a variety of attempts to silence them. Most dramatically in Alberta, where student encampments at UofA and the University of Calgary were violently cleared out by police using batons, pepper spray and rubber bullets, leaving multiple students with injuries. 

At York University, the administration threatened to withdraw recognition for two student unions on campus, unless their executives resigned and they withdrew statements in solidarity with Palestine. This was a direct threat that targeted both freedom of expression, and also the right of students to collectively organize.

These kinds of incidents have happened all over Canada. At UBC, a pro-Palestine group was framed with fake stickers that read “I heart Hamas”—which was later revealed to be a false flag attempt by a Zionist group on campus to justify a crackdown on their activity. 

At UQAM in Montreal, flyers accusing the rector and a professor of failing to denounce genocide in Palestine were baselessly smeared as antisemitic. On campuses across the country, activists are harassed by security any time they try to mobilize around the issue of Palestine.

And this repression is not exclusive to campuses. In November 2023, eleven activists were slapped with charges of “’hate-motivated’ mischief”, for putting up posters and splashing red paint on an Indigo Books storefront in Toronto. 

The action was a protest against Indigo CEO Heather Reisman’s support for a program that incentivizes foreigners to serve in the Israeli military. The fact that she’s Jewish had nothing to do with it, but this didn’t stop the media from raising a massive hue and cry about ‘antisemitism’. 

These activists were arrested in pre-dawn police raids, with cops breaking down their doors, guns in hand. This tells you everything you need to know about the priorities of the Canadian state. 

The capitalists might have their courts, cops, and media monopolies, but we are the majority in society, and it is us, not them, that makes society run. As individuals, or as a handful of activists, we are easy prey for courts, cops, and university administrations. But united in a mass movement that rests on our collective strength, we can put an end to the oppression and intimidation of our movement.