Crackdown on Arabs and Muslims Continues at Concordia University

March 12, 2003
Submitted by Chadi Serhal- (Montreal)
(chadiserhal@hotmail.com)

Yesterday, Tuesday Mar. 11, Concordia Management student Nidal Al-Alul was detained and charged with ‘uttering death threats’.

At around 3pm yesterday, Nidal was holding a discussion with non-student members of ‘Israel for Free’ in front of a table they had set-up beside Hillel [the Jewish student group] on the Mezzanine of Concordia’s main downtown campus where students usually hold information tables.

One of the people Nidal was talking to accused him of having ‘a weak personality’. Nidal negated that by saying: who knows, I may be famous in 2 years. The Israel for Free person publicly interpreted that statement claiming that Nidal plans to blow himself up. Nidal immediately descended to the security office of the campus to denounce these false, public allegations and file a report against the group. Simultaneously, security was summoned up to the Mezzanine by Hillel and Israel for Free to report Nidal’s so-called ‘death threats’. An SPHR [Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights-Concordia] member who happened to be nearby asked Jean Brisebois, head of Security at Concordia, how non-students could file a complaint. Brisebois said that the Mezzanine is a public space and that Israel for Free may have been invited by Hillel.  

Minutes later, security asked Nidal to go back to their office to sign his statement. That is when two police men walked into the office and closed the door. Two more cops followed. When the first two came out, and were approached by an SPHR member, they said that Nidal was arrested. When asked for their badge numbers, they constantly refused to give them. They were pursued to their cars and their numbers were recorded.

Two more cops then went in to the security office were Nidal was being held. When asked if Nidal had been read his rights to, they said that he had, and added that he was not arrested, but was there willingly talking. Nidal was then allowed to leave. He said that what the cops had told the SPHR members was not true.

At 9pm, SPHR Montreal got a phone call from Nidal saying that he was arrested and taken to the Guy-Rene Levesque police station. SPHR’s lawyer had a chance to speak to Nidal over the phone, and said that he was hyperventilating and that he was given a statement by the police and asked to sign it.

Several colleagues and supporters showed up at the police station and stayed out after police had locked the doors for the night. At around 1am, the police told us that Nidal would spend the night under interrogation and would be sent to the Municipal Court between 7 and 9am the next morning [Wednesday] where he would appear in front of a judge when summoned at any time of the day.

Supporters plan to gather at the police station before Nidal is transferred to the Municipal Court, and a major rally of support is scheduled to be present at the Municipal Court of Montréal, located at 775 Gosford Street, near City Hall (Champ-de-Mars Metro Station) as of 9am today, Wednesday, Mar. 12.

Over the past couple of years, Concordia’s administration has fought to seize the ‘public space’, granted to the Israel for Free non-students, from its own students. SPHR activities on and off campus have been fought by the university for alleged ‘security concerns’. Last September, a group of students who planned a sit-in to protest war-criminal Benjamin Netanyahu’s coming to Concordia University were charged with ‘illegal assembly’ at their own school, during school hours. Mr. Brisbois, head of security, stated that if it were up to him, Muslim students would not have a place to pray at Concordia. The lobby of the main campus is no longer available for hosting information tables as a result of the sit-in of Sep. 9 that resulted in police’s beating and pepper-spraying the students. Last November, Concordia obtained a court injunction to stop Svend Robinson a member of Canadian Parliament from speaking at Concordia. Last April, Mr. Robinson defied the occupying Israeli forces’ barring him from entering part of Palestinian soil that they occupy.

Hillel has displayed forms to enlist foreign volunteers in the occupying Israeli Defence Forces. Also, Hillel has distributed racist and hate-literature against Arabs and Muslims; most recently a pamphlet that read ‘We’ve JIHAD enough. It’s time to stop using the Koran to justify murder’ [insinuating that the Qur’an does indeed call for murder].

The day is expected to be long at court. Please try to show up and bring friends along.