Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) students are organizing a walkout and rally Wednesday afternoon in response to the controversial arrest of a pro-Palestine student protester last week.
TMU student advocacy group Students For Justice In Palestine (SJP) posted a notice to their Instagram page calling for a student walkout and rally at 1:30 p.m. at the school’s Kerr Quad, located at 80 Gould Street.
The group is calling for the termination of security guards involved in the arrest of a female pro-Palestine protester, which was captured on video and quickly circulated online.
@nowtoronto Toronto Metropolitan University says security officers have been “reassigned” following a violent detainment of a pro-Palestine student protester. #TMU ♬ original sound – Now Toronto
The video shows two security guards forcibly restraining and arresting the female student while she lay on the ground, at one point even screaming and yelling that she can’t breathe and was being hurt.
The arrest was made after a group of demonstrators were removed from a Democracy Forum on campus on Sept. 19, where MP and Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon was in attendance.
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In addition to the termination of the security guards, students are also demanding an “end to student repression,” and the school’s alleged complicity in the ongoing war in Gaza.
“This brutalization shows an escalation of violence to silence pro-Palestine students. Shame,” SJP wrote in a statement on Instagram.
TMU Vice President of Administration and Operations Saeed Zolfaghari released a statement following backlash from the arrest and said the security guards involved, who are contracted by a third-party security agency, have been reassigned and will not return pending the outcome of a review.
According to the statement, the police were called to the incident and it is now a police matter.
Now Toronto reached out to SJP for comment but have not yet received a response.
