REGINA - The official raising of the Palestine flag did not happen Friday morning at City Hall, but that did not stop pro-Palestine supporters from showing up anyway.
Instead of a flag-raising, it was a protest that ensured outside City Hall in Regina. Demonstrators were on hand waving placards and several of their own Palestine flags.
The group of over 100 people also chanted slogans including “end the siege on Gaza now” as well as the controversial chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
The protest erupted after the flag raising was ordered not to proceed by Mayor Sandra Masters on Thursday afternoon. The cancellation happened after city officials had previously approved the application for the flag to go up.
Several of the demonstrators openly denounced Masters for the decision to cancel the flag raising, with chants such as “Sandra Masters you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”
Regina would have been the first city in Canada to hold such a flag raising, which would have coincided with the day recognizing Palestine’s Declaration of Independence. But the city had come under criticism in the last several days from opponents who said the flag-raising supported terrorism.
While there was a police presence on hand at the protest that ensued Friday morning, the event stayed peaceful for the most part. The one notable exception involved a YouTube personality who loudly expressed her disgust towards the pro-Palestine supporters and the sentiments being expressed. However, police stepped in to calm that situation down.
Valerie Zink, a member of Palestine Solidarity Regina, said her organization had supported the application from proponents to raise the Palestine flag at City Gall. Zink pointed to the raising of the flag of Israel outside City Hall back in May, which she said caused concern from people in Regina due to Israel being on trial for genocide and for using starvation as a weapon of war.
“People were invited by city staff at that time to submit an application to raise the flag of Palestine on Nov. 15 which is the anniversary of Palestine liberation. Members of the Palestinian community did that, they submitted the application, which was approved in accordance with the city’s flag protocol.”
She said they had expected the flag raising to have gone ahead quietly and peacefully with little attention.
“But it’s obviously gone in a different direction now because of Sandra Masters’ decision to shut it down. And she hasn’t provided any justification for that. I think it’s backfired in the sense that it brought a lot of attention to the issue. We had a very strong turnout today for our community mobilization instead. Certainly people don’t need the authorization of the Mayor to expressive their solidarity with Palestine.”
One of those on hand at the demonstration, Fatima Khairy, said she was there to lend her support because of the videos she had seen of what went on in Gaza.
“I spend every day, about an hour, watching the videos coming out of Gaza. After I see that, I can’t stay silent, I can’t pretend, ‘oh there’s nothing going on,’” she said.
As for the decision to cancel the flag raising, she called it “unfair and a coward action.”
“This is one of the Canadian values you know - speak up, freedom. But they tried to make it difficult for people. But you can see, we are the ones who can speak for freedom, there’s nothing can stop us.”
