By Amira Benjamin

Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) president, Mohamed Lachemi, made a public statement today to address the Sept. 19 and Nov. 5 demonstrations, which both ended in the arrests of TMU students.

The first arrest happened at a Dais panel event on Sept. 19, which saw one student arrested by TMU security after a demonstration at the event in the George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre, as previously reported by The Eyeopener. 

The most recent was on Nov. 5 at an off-campus Students Supporting Israel (SSI) event hosting a former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldier, where five people, including TMU students, were arrested by Toronto Police Services, while eight were hospitalized, as previously reported by The Eye.  

In today’s online statement, president Lachemi reiterated the SSI event was off-campus and not sanctioned by TMU. He said the university “made good-faith attempts” to reach out to affected students but had to contact “third-party organizations to share our concerns.”

Lachemi also announced in the statement that the Nov. 5 incident will be included in the independent review of the Sept. 19 assault of a student protestor. Justice Mary Lou Benotto, a former Ontario Court of Appeals justice, was chosen to lead the review in a TMU statement earlier this month.

The justice’s mandate will be to review “how TMU manages protests, events and demonstrations, including how we balance freedom of expression, campus safety and the orderly functioning of the university,” he said in today’s statement.

The president’s statement comes less than a week after the Toronto Metropolitan Students’ Union (TMSU) announced on their Instagram the possibility of conducting an independent third-party investigation “into whether any TMSU-recognized groups breached TMSU policy.” 

TMSU said in the post that they’ve received “multiple complaints from students and community members regarding recent incidents involving TMSU-recognized student groups.”

TMSU also outlined that union-recognized groups who fail to abide by TMSU policies “may result in sanctions, including restricting groups’ eligibility to apply for TMSU funding or removal of TMSU recognition.”

Lachemi’s online statement outlined Justice Benotto’s objectives for the review will “establish factual findings about the Sept. 19 and Nov. 5 events” and “examine TMU’s practices for planning and managing events and protests, on- and off-campus”.

Lachemi said in the statement there will be no “artificial timeline” for Justice Benotto’s review, but will publicly share the findings and “outline how the will act on her recommendations”.

On Nov. 13, a sixth person was charged in connection to the aforementioned Nov. 5 SSI event—five people had previously been charged. 

On Nov. 7, TMU students and community members held a press conference on campus, demanding the administration to ban student groups that highlight military delegations, as previously reported by The Eye.