CALGARY, March 29, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Tensions heightened at the University of Calgary (U of C) Wednesday after campus security setup a checkpoint at the main entrance of the school while blocking off a nearby entrance, according to a release from the Campus Pro-Life (CPL) club. On Tuesday, a vandal destroyed the CPL’s Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) pro-life display after the University barred the display from campus.
In addition, campus security escorted pro-life students off campus for putting up 8 by 11 inch posters, including pro-life speaker Natalie Sanesh, scheduled to give a public address Thursday. Although the university indefinitely banned Sanesh and other non-student volunteers from campus, they allowed her to present her lecture – as long as she departed immediately following.
The security lock-down followed the attempt by CPL to display GAP on campus. GAP visually compares abortion with other forms of genocide such as slavery and the holocaust on large four feet by eight signs.
“It’s like a totalitarian regime in there,” said Joshua Nugent, a U of C student and VP of CPL. “Ironically, driving onto campus is like crossing the border from a democratic country where we have free speech to a dictatorship which suppresses speech. I am embarrassed that my university has treated my club and our professional speaker the way they did,” Nugent added. “It’s ridiculous to ban someone from campus just for putting up posters the size of computer paper.”
“I am appalled at the censorship on this campus,” said Natalie Sanesh, Campus Outreach Director for the Vancouver-based Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR). “CPL members are doing what should be encouraged on university campuses: peacefully expressing themselves.”
Sanesh’s presentation, “Echoes of the Holocaust,” examined the parallels between abortion and historical atrocities.
See Tuesday’s LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Student Pro-Life Displays Vandalized, Barred from University of Calgary Campus
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