University security closely monitored pro-Palestine activists, documents show [video]

Security officials at the University of New Brunswick appear to have closely monitored Palestine solidarity activism during the last school year, frequently communicating with Fredericton police about protests and even a panel discussion, documents obtained by the NB Media Co-op show.

The records shine a light on how the UNB administration has handled pro-Palestinian protests at its Saint John and Fredericton campuses, where some student activists and faculty have complained about heavy-handed security.

UNB’s head of security was especially preoccupied by activists’ use of the slogan: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” The slogan references the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which today includes the State of Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories.

That phrase has been a flashpoint not only in Canada but across the Western world in debates that have intensified since October 2023. Pro-Palestinian activists argue that it’s a call for freedom and equality throughout historic Palestine, amid conditions of apartheid and genocide; supporters of Israel often allege that the slogan is antisemitic, saying that it implies the total destruction of Israel and the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the territory.

The emails show that UNB security actively monitored the use of that slogan and on several occasions informed police about its use. UNB security also took steps to discourage activists from using the phrase, even describing it as “hate speech” in some communications, without mentioning its contested meaning.

In correspondence with law enforcement, UNB’s head of security cited “complaints” about the slogan from people in the university community during the last school year. Yet no formal complaints were filed with UNB security about any on-campus protests during that time, according to the university’s own records. Police in Fredericton say they’ve received no complaints of hate crimes or antisemitism related to the protests at UNB, nor were police in Saint John aware of any such complaints.

There is reason for concern about genuine anti-Jewish hatred in New Brunswick and across North America. For example, the windows of the Fredericton synagogue were smashed on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day earlier this year. And in 2018, UNB Saint John’s student newspaper The Baron earned condemnation and ridicule when it published a bizarre, unedited op-ed by a neo-Nazi and allowed him to hold forth in an accompanying interview.

But Palestine solidarity activists, many of them Jewish, vigorously reject allegations that support for the Palestinian cause or criticism of Israel is antisemitic, calling it a dangerous misconception. And many argue that anti-Jewish and anti-Palestinian hatred are both part of an extreme-right ideology that’s on the rise.

Some pro-Palestinian students and professors have expressed outrage about their treatment by UNB security, while others have expressed ambivalence or sympathy towards security officials. In any case, the documents raise questions about the line between legitimate political expression and hate speech for those who oppose Israel’s U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, a military campaign widely condemned as genocidal, now in its fourteenth month.

UNB didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment from the NB Media Co-op for this story.

‘River to the sea’ slogan monitored

“This is coming up Thursday,” said Don Allen, UNB director of security and traffic, in a Feb. 5 email to the Fredericton police. He was flagging a planned campus walkout calling for a ceasefire.

At a previous walkout in November, he said, “someone was using the ‘from the river to the sea’ chant. We will monitor. FYI in the event tensions flare up.”

Detective Dennis Van Ember, an intelligence officer with the Criminal Investigation Division of the Fredericton Police Force, replied that he was aware of the planned walkout when Allen sent another heads-up on the day of the event.

“I haven’t seen anything online that causes me any public safety concern,” Van Ember said. “Course that doesn’t mean your guys won’t be busy with herding and watching duties.”

In a follow-up email, Allen elaborated about earlier walkouts and the controversial slogan.

“There have been two of these so far in late 2023 and both were non-violent, however there was some concern over some posters and one chant,” the UNB head of security said. “The last protest some people repeated the chant ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.'”

“We had complaints from observers and some Jewish students as it is considered hate speech since it implies genocide due to the origins of the phrase,” he continued, without specifying its purported origins. “We looked at video and could not identify the responsible parties.”

The records were obtained under New Brunswick’s Right to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (RTIPPA) by a Palestine solidarity activist who shared them with the NB Media Co-op.

When someone whose name was redacted under privacy provisions emailed the head of security, letting him know about the planned Feb. 8 walkout, Allen asked the activist to refrain from using the slogan.

“We support peaceful protest and free speech, but, this specific chant can be viewed as hate speech,” Allen told the activist. “We want to ensure the safety of all, including your group.”

In one email addressed to UNB’s president and several other senior administrators on Dec. 12, 2023, Allen noted that he was previously unfamiliar with the slogan and didn’t know the “true meaning of it” until recently when he “saw news reports about protests and learned about the chant.”

In another case, Allen emailed the Fredericton police on Nov. 28, 2023 to alert them about a student walkout scheduled for the following day.

“Last one was OK, but I believe they may have used the controversial ‘from the river to the sea’ chant,” the UNB head of security wrote. “That caused some others to express concern.” He included a link to the Instagram account of the local Students for Palestine group.

“Acknowledged,” replied Michael MacLean of the Fredericton Police Force. “We will have marked cars in the area.”

No formal complaints filed

The security director referenced “complaints” about pro-Palestinian protesters several times in email communications with police and university administrators reviewed by the NB Media Co-op. But when the university conducted a search of its records in response to a Right to Information request, it didn’t turn up any records of formal complaints.

The NB Media Co-op requested copies of all complaints held by the head of security’s office related to protests at UNB between October 2023 and August 16, 2024, when the RTIPPA request was filed.

“We contacted Security & Traffic, and a search was conducted,” wrote university secretary Sarah DeVarenne in a Sept. 26 letter responding to the request. “There were no formal complaints filed within the offices of Security & Traffic during the stipulated timeframe, so no records were found.”

Clearly some people were unhappy about the protests. For example, in the Dec. 12, 2023 email addressed to the UNB president and other senior administrators, Allen noted that a person or group whose name was redacted under privacy provisions had “reached out to security” before earlier demonstrations, “as they feared for their safety during the protest.” In the email, he outlined efforts to “ensure things were safe and respectful on both sides,” including discussions with activists in which “it was agreed” that the chant wouldn’t be used.

But if UNB security received complaints about alleged antisemitic or hate speech activity on campus, it’s unclear why security wouldn’t document those complaints through some kind of formal process. And if the complaints were serious enough to warrant the attention of law enforcement — and to prompt the head of security to ask activists to change their slogans — it’s unclear why there are no records on file. UNB didn’t respond to requests for interviews with Don Allen or other senior security officials.

Panel discussion flagged by police

In the correspondence reviewed by the NB Media Co-op, police and security generally described the protests as non-violent and respectful. Still, they appeared to monitor the social media activity of Palestinian solidarity groups, including an announcement about a panel discussion that took place in April.

“I’m sure you’re already aware of the attached,” Detective Van Ember wrote in a message to UNB’s head of security on March 28. The attachment itself was redacted, but the email’s subject line referenced a “Palestine Discussion” at UNB Fredericton on April 3. A panel discussion about the “ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza” took place on that date, as reported by the NB Media Co-op. That event, billed as a “teach-in,” featured professors from UNB and St. Thomas University.

Van Ember, the police intelligence officer, seemed to acknowledge that the event didn’t pose any security threat, even as he flagged it to his counterpart at UNB security.

“I’m not seeing anything that will necessarily require a presence by Fredericton Police but if anything changes, please feel free to reach out,” he wrote. In his reply, Allen said: “We will have a presence nearby just in case and will call if anything escalates.”

UNB undergrad Dora Szemok, who organized the panel discussion, said she noticed a security guard in the hallway of the building where the panel discussion took place. (Szemok is a contributor to the NB Media Co-op.)

“The security guard didn’t interact with us or interrupt the event but I have no idea why he felt it was necessary for him to be there,” she said. “I’ve never seen campus security at other discussion panel events.”

Viqar Husain, a UNB professor of mathematics who spoke on the April 3 panel, called the surveillance of pro-Palestinian activists “very concerning, but alas not surprising.” He said there was no legitimate public safety concern. (Husain recently criticized the stance of “political neutrality” on Israel-Palestine adopted by UNB and other universities in a commentary published by the NB Media Co-op.)

“The students who organized the panel at UNB, and those participating, are all invariably gentle sensitive souls deeply appalled by the obvious genocide of Palestinians,” he said. “The activism we are all witnessing goes well beyond merely pro-Palestinian activism,” Husain said. “It is pro-human rights, pro-peace and anti-genocide. UNB’s senior administration is surely aware of this.”

Matthew Sears, a professor of classics and ancient history at UNB who attended the panel, also expressed concern about surveillance, saying it “reveals a double standard that amounts to anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism on the part of the university and security community” and “criminalizes students and faculty members by assuming they will be more likely to engage in violence and other proscribed activities simply because they oppose the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine.”

“I am not privy to such discussions among administrators and security personnel, but I can’t imagine that students advocating for Ukraine would be subject to the same scrutiny,” he added.

The Fredericton Police Force declined an interview request, but provided a brief comment by email. Police spokesperson Sonya Gilks said the “reference to Det. Van Ember’s email was for awareness, in our role to protect peace and order, for all involved, in what has been a politically divisive topic.” She confirmed that the police force hasn’t received “any complaints about alleged hate crimes or antisemitism related to student protests since Oct. 2023.”

The Saint John police couldn’t immediately confirm whether there were any hate-related complaints in relation to the UNB protests but a staff sergeant said “to my knowledge there have not been any issues reported to police.”

‘Sense of unease’

Speakers on the panel included Shaun Narine, a professor of international relations and chair of the Department of Political Science at STU. In an interview, he recalled that the panel was originally supposed to be held at the campus library, but the room reservation was cancelled at the last minute, amid what he described a “sense of unease” about the event.

Documents obtained by the NB Media Co-op seem to confirm that apprehensiveness among UNB officials, he said. Narine was relatively sympathetic to police and security officials monitoring campus activism, saying they probably intended to protect Jewish students from antisemitic incidents. However, he noted that very few confrontations have occurred at campus protests in New Brunswick.

“And, even in the places in North America and the Western world where you see violence occurring around these protests, much of the actual violence has been committed by pro-Israel activists against pro-Palestinian activists,” he said. He noted that Israel has been “extremely successful in conflating anti-Israel speech with antisemitism,” resulting in a “real blurring of the lines between Israel, antisemitism and political speech in general.”

As emotions run high, Narine said, “it’s perfectly reasonable for both UNB security and even Fredericton Police to be concerned” about how events unfold on campus. However, he stressed that security and police should be at least as concerned about protesters being attacked as anything else.

“We need to keep in mind that it’s usually people who are in favour of Palestinians who end up being silenced,” Narine stated, “much like the Palestinians themselves have been demonized and dehumanized and silenced in Western society as a whole.”

As for the meaning of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” Narine said it’s problematic to ascribe a hateful meaning to it: “You can’t simply, I think, automatically assume that the most negative connotation that you’re placing on it is the one that is meant by the people using the phrase.”

Watch the full interview with Prof. Shaun Narine:

Run-ins with security

Some student activists previously described run-ins with campus security for their activism.

While taking part in a protest at UNB’s Saint John campus on Friday, May 17 — spring graduation day in Saint John — James MacFarlan was confronted by a security official for carrying a sign bearing the “River to the sea” slogan.

The security official told him his sign had to go, according to MacFarlan, who was a third-year undergrad at the time. “You have to change it, get rid of it or leave, or you will be trespassing,” he recalled the UNB security official saying.

MacFarlan told the security official that he disagreed, saying it was a slogan of freedom. MacFarlan refused to identify himself to the security officer, who allegedly said: “I’m going to charge you with trespass and I’m going to call the police.”

After about 10 minutes, the security official returned, saying he’d been told that the Saint John police don’t consider the slogan antisemitic, “so I guess we can both just agree that you can stay put,” MacFarlan said.

MacFarlan, who since then has left UNB, described the security officer’s behaviour as “extremely confrontational and intimidating.” Asked at one point how he determined that the sign was “hate speech,” the security officer referenced the Anti-Defamation League, according to MacFarlan.

The ADL has lobbied in the United States for the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s controversial “working definition of antisemitism,” which critics say is meant to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel.

The ADL’s reputation recently suffered a blow when Wikipedia’s editors deemed it unreliable on the topic of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

‘Security was watching us closely’

UNB’s head of security appears to have discussed MacFarlan’s placard with police that same day. “One new sign there today has the slogan,” he said in a May 17 email addressed to at least two members of the Fredericton Police Force.

His message included a link to an ADL webpage featuring a short text without any citations calling the slogan a “hateful phrase” used by “anti-Israel voices, including supporters of Hamas.”

The NB Media Co-op asked MacFarlan what the slogan means to him.

“I believe that the only solution in Israel and Palestine is the creation of a single unitary democratic state with equal rights for all religious and ethnic groups. And, to me, that’s what this slogan means,” he said. “It means that Jewish, Muslim, Arab, other ethnic groups can live together peacefully in a democratic society.”

A group of UNB professors and librarians issued an open letter earlier this year saying that UNB’s graduation ceremonies were marred by measures “designed to suppress freedom of expression by students, staff and faculty.”

That included “an irregular and uncalled for uniformed police and plain-clothes security presence” and “UNB security asking for the removal of keffiyehs,” among other measures, the letter said.

Keffiyehs are traditional scarves commonly worn to symbolize Palestinian solidarity. MacFarlan said he was aware of at least one graduating student who was told he couldn’t enter convocation unless he removed his keffiyeh.

MacFarlan added that private security approached demonstrators at one point “and asked them for their names and information,” saying they had been “asked by campus security to report any sightings of Palestinian flags on and around campus.”

“So that was the sort of the mentality we were going into throughout the day, was that security was watching us closely,” he said.

Watch the full interview with James MacFarlan: 

UNB Fredericton student Laila Soliman also told the NB Media Co-op last year that campus security told her they don’t want the “river to the sea” slogan used in chants or on posters “because a lot of people [were] complaining about it.”

In an interview, she rejected claims that activists are motivated by antisemitism. “It’s not about Muslims and Jews, it’s about humanity and human rights,” Soliman said. However, she didn’t have any qualms with UNB security, saying “they were pretty normal” when she interacted with them as part of her organizing efforts.

Trademark violation?

In addition to his run-in with UNB security over the slogan, James MacFarlan was shocked to receive a message from UNB on graduation day suggesting that he had violated the university’s trademark.

MacFarlan said a friend had drawn up a poster for a rally at the Saint John campus. The poster included UNB’s stylized red sailboat logo in a circle, superimposed against a Palestinian flag and ringed by the words “People’s University for Palestine.”

“I shared that poster on my Twitter account,” said MacFarlan, who posts under the name Emo Morales on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“I woke up on Friday morning [May 17, 2024] to a message from UNB’s official Twitter account saying that I had violated their copyright by using the university’s logo in my media. Again, I didn’t even make this poster.”

The message stated that the UNB sail logo was a “trademarked symbol of the University of New Brunswick, and its use is protected under trademark law. Unauthorized use of this sail icon is not permitted by outside organizations.”

The message added: “We kindly request that you cease using this visual on all your creative materials immediately.”

MacFarlan was shocked by the unexpected note from the university. “Despite their word ‘kindly’ in the end of that message, it was quite a threatening and intimidating message,” he said.

The move seemed to reflect a double standard on UNB’s part: certain student clubs and societies also use the sailboat image, including the Student Society for Mechanical Engineers and the Bangladesh Student Society.

In May, the NB Media Co-op asked UNB to respond to those criticisms. At the time, UNB spokesperson Natasha Ashfield said: “The group you reference in your email – ‘People’s University for Palestine’ – has no affiliation with the University of New Brunswick, and we have asked them to cease using our trademarked symbol.”

MacFarlan said he believes the logo would fall under fair use provisions in the Copyright Act. When he said as much to UNB, he received no reply.

Petition pushback

More recently, pro-Palestinian activists from the UNB Student Organizing Collective have encountered pushback from security as they gathered signatures for a petition calling on the university to divest from Israel, as reported in September by the Daily Gleaner.

A spokesperson for UNB was quoted in that article saying that the petition caused some students to fear for their safety because they felt pressured to sign it.

“While being uncomfortable because your opinion differs from others is something that will and should happen on our campuses, we heard from students who felt more than uncomfortable,” UNB’s associate director of communication, Marcia Seitz-Ehle, was quoted as saying.

“Students reached out to the president’s office to express fear for themselves or their classmates’ safety simply for coming to class and not wanting to sign a petition,” said Seitz-Ehle, who worked for more than 16 years in public affairs for the U.S. Department of State before she joined UNB.

Student organizer Dora Szemok expressed bafflement about UNB’s statement. “We have always been professional and courteous; we cannot imagine how simply asking someone to sign a petition might make them ‘fear for their safety’ as the President’s office claimed,” she said, noting that more than 1,000 students have signed the petition.

“As canvassing is done in public settings, like classrooms, hallways, and student events, concerned students, faculty or staff certainly would have notified the police if we were using force, violence or intimidation,” she added. “However, neither security nor the President’s office will clarify what behaviour compromised student safety.”

The group is now unable to canvass in the Student Union Building, she said. “Security will come up to us, say we’re making students uncomfortable without any evidence or further explanation, and ask us to leave. As students, we have a right to be in the SUB, and we have a right to collect signatures for a petition.”

UNB President Paul Mazerolle called for “civility and respect” in a message to the UNB community in September, following events that he said included protesters entering a classroom in Fredericton, where they “caused disruption prior to the start of the lecture.” At the Saint John campus, he said, “a confrontation among students about the war in the Middle East required intervention from UNB security and local police.”

His message prompted 107 members of the UNB faculty and staff to issue a letter to UNB stating that his comments had mischaracterized “student, staff, and faculty efforts towards social change as disruptive and unsafe, thereby inciting a general fear of peaceful assemblies, dissent, and petitions while also threatening to curb academic freedoms and rights to protest.”

UNB didn’t respond to a request for an interview with Nadia Richards, associate vice-president of Human Rights and Equity.

Violation of Senate rules?

Copies of emails obtained under the Right to Information Act also show that on May 16, UNB President Paul Mazerolle received a link to an NB Media Co-op article examining the university’s connections to Israel, including military contractor Lockheed Martin and the Cybersecurity Innovation Centre at Ben-Gurion University.

That article detailed how some members of the UNB Fredericton Senate pressed administrators to disclose UNB’s ties to Israeli institutions and to sever those connections.

“Can you check with Sarah if this violates any senate rules…..also……where are our positive stories,” Mazerolle replied in an email to his chief of staff.

The question about UNB-Israel connections had been co-signed by professors Matthew Sears and Viqar Husain, who are both members of the UNB Fredericton Senate. “It is clear that Mazerolle wanted to find a way to kick me and Viqar off the Senate, or otherwise censure us,” Sears said after reviewing the email.

“I think this kind of approach from the head of a Canadian academic institution in response to faculty members speaking about a topic of great public and academic interest is outrageous,” he said. Husain noted that the discussion in question took place during an open session of the Senate. “The President must surely have been aware of that,” he said. 

UNB didn’t respond to the NB Media Co-op’s request for an interview with Mazerolle.

Union responds

In response to campus protests earlier this year, Mazerolle issued a statement saying that UNB “values and upholds freedom of expression and free speech, but notes that it is not absolute — there are limits.”

The statement went on to say that “expressing hate speech is not protected it Canada,” and that “violence will not be tolerated at our university.”

That language provoked indignation from some faculty, staff and students, who declared the UNB president was casting aspersion on pro-Palestinian activists by falsely associating them with hate speech and violence.

At the time, a professor and a doctoral student had been served with no-trespass notices by security at UNB Saint John for pitching a tent at a Palestine solidarity site.

In June, the union representing faculty and staff at UNB filed a grievance with the university over the incident. The Association of UNB Teachers (AUNBT) said that the peaceful demonstration fell “squarely within the scope” of academic freedom protections in their collective agreements.

The union has also joined in calls for the university to divest from Israel and companies linked to “the ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people.” In September, members of the union passed a motion stating that “AUNBT will divest and will call on UNB to divest from any Israeli companies located in the occupied Palestinian Territories, any arms manufacturers, and any other companies supporting or benefiting from the ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli military continues its assault on the Gaza Strip and the southern suburbs of Beirut, according to reports. On Thursday, a UN special committee published a report saying that Israel’s methods of warfare are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide.”

David Gordon Koch is a journalist with the NB Media Co-op. This reporting has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada, administered by the Canadian Association of Community Television Stations and Users (CACTUS).