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Heigo Parsa
Heigo Parsa [Parsa Albeheshti] organized the pro-Hamas encampment at UofT in May 2024. Parsa has also spread anti-Semitism and participated in a students’ “occupation” of UofT’s president’s office in April 2024.
Heigo Parsa is a UofT student who organized the UofT encampment which began on May 2, 2024.
In a May 2, 2024, video interview from the encampment, Parsa said [00:00:06]: “...We’ve been demanding for a long time that the University of Toronto end its complicity with Israeli apartheid and its occupation – Israel’s occupation of Palestine and especially the current ongoing genocide in Gaza, and we’ve basically exhausted every means of protest at our disposal…”
Parsa continued [00:00:27]: “...students on campus have sent open letters, hosted educational events…organized protests. Most recently, a group of students staged an occupation outside President Gertler’s office…but…President Gertler essentially rejected all three of their demands.”
Parsa concluded [00:01:00]: “So we’ve basically been left with no choice but to escalate…”
Parsa was featured [00:00:39] in an April 4, 2024 video about the incident outside the UofT president’s office which began on April 1, 2024. Parsa said: “...we [would] not leave until our demands were directly addressed….” He also claimed [00:00:44]: “the administration did not treat us well. They did everything they could possibly do to…starve us out…
The “occupation” of the president’s office ended after thirty hours.
On July 2, 2024, Parsa was named [p. 1] as a respondent in an “ORDER” and injunction brought against him and 12 others, plus an unspecified number of “PERSONS UNKNOWN,” by UofT’s Governing Council.
The order, issued by a judge of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, instructed [p. 2] the respondents to “remove any and all structures, tents, encampments, and items of personal property,” and “vacate” the encampment by the evening of July 3, 2024.
The order further stated [pp. 2-3] that the respondents were “restrained and enjoined from directly or indirectly…physically preventing, impeding, restricting or in any way physically interfering with…access to University property…erecting any fences, tents, structures or barriers of any type on University property”...[or] “using, entering or gathering at Front Campus, King’s College Circle…between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m.”
UofT is located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Heigo Parsa’s Organization of the Pro-Hamas Encampment at the University of Toronto (UofT)
On May 2, 2024, activists from the UofT Occupy for Palestine (Occupy UofT) group “stormed down” [00:00:24] the fencing around UofT’s Kings College Circle and set up a pro-Hamas encampment, which they called the “People’s Circle for Palestine.”
That day, Occupy UofT called on “community members to…help us defend our encampment” at an emergency rally in the evening. Protesters chanted [00:02:59] for “intifada” and celebrated “resistance” [00:02:45]. Both terms are calls for terrorism. The activists also chanted [00:01:28; 00:02:21] for Israel’s destruction multiple times.
One speaker, Nabil Jalbout, said [00:09:02]: “...we are not fighting for peace, we are fighting for liberation, because ‘peace’ is a white man's word.” Another speaker, Ahmad Jarrar Hajahmad, claimed [00:05:52]: “All these Israeli and Zionist entities fill all these politicians with money in their pockets…we already know who runs this system…”
Signs displayed at the encampment said: “LONG LIVE THE INTIFADA” and “LIBERATION FOR ALL REQUIRES RESISTANCE FROM ALL.”
On May 4, 2024, anti-Israel protesters at the encampment assaulted a Jewish man, punching him in the stomach as they forcibly took his Israeli flag. The attackers told the man [00:01:02]: “God bless the armed resistance,” and: “Go back to Europe!” They also reportedly called him “a “dirty Jew.”
Protesters “occupied” [00:00:17] the area from May to July 2024, despite UofT’s warning they were trespassing. The group said they would not leave until UofT divested from companies that “sustain Israeli apartheid, occupation and illegal settlement of Palestine” and terminated partnerships with Israeli academic institutions.
Following the October 7, 2023 massacre of nearly 1,200 Israelis, the inverted red triangle - 🔻- became a Hamas symbol. This symbol appeared on large signs at the encampment multiple times. Erin Mackey, one of the primary organizers, is openly pro-Hamas, having used the symbol in her activism. In addition, pro-Hamas marches that began in other parts of the city concluded at the encampment.
On July 3, 2024, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice issued an injunction at the request of UofT’s Governing Council, requiring students to clear the encampment. Occupy UofT dismantled the encampment and wrote [slides 5-6]: “We are just getting started…come fall, every incoming student will hear our message loud and clear…Whatever institution you have access to and influence over - you need to take this campaign there!” The statement concluded: “Long live the intifada.”
The encampment was one of over 140 pro-Hamas and anti-Israel college encampments set up in North America, and over 20 more globally, in the spring of 2024. The first began on April 17, 2024, at Columbia University. The encampments were unofficially known as the “student intifada,” borrowing a term associated with terrorist violence.
Protesters harassed Jewish students, blocked Jews from campus facilities and shouted anti-Semitic slogans. They occupied campus grounds, in many cases illegally, caused property damage, violently took over buildings, celebrated terrorism and promoted the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Activists set up encampments to oppose Israel’s right to wage war against the Hamas terror group following October 7, 2023, when Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 people, including 32 American and 8 Canadian citizens. Hamas also kidnapped 252 people, including 11 Americans and the bodies of 2 murdered Canadians. As of May 26, 2024, 125 hostages remained in Hamas captivity.
For more information on the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.
On July 31, 2024, Parsa posted on X: “...haniyeh himself, after decades of working closely with the iranians, was not able to figure out that they’re filthy shiite zionist traitors…”
Ismail Haniyeh served as the senior leader of terror group Hamas for 18 years. During this time, Hamas increased its rocket barrages on southern Israel and built more terror tunnels. Haniyeh was assassinated in Iran on July 31, 2024, during the Swords of Iron war, which Israel launched against Hamas in response to the October 7, 2023, Hamas atrocities.
On December 8, 2023, Parsa posted on X: “the world knew nazis were ruling germany in [19]33. they didn’t have to wait til 35, 38, 39 or 42 to find out a genocide was possible. same with palestine. in 2022 the world was warned that nazis are now ruling israel. it chose not to listen until a genocide was well underway.”
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) highlights as one possible contemporary example of anti-Semitism: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” The U.S. State Department adopted the IHRA’s working definition of anti-Semitism in 2016. Over 40 countries have adopted the definition as well.
Anti-Israel activists compare Israel to Nazi Germany to insinuate that the plight of Palestinians has eclipsed Jewish suffering during the Holocaust.
On October 24, 2023, a few weeks after the Hamas terror attack on Israel, Parsa posted on X: “any call for ceasefire without the release of hostages is meaningless. i 100% agree. release the 2 million hostages held in the Gaza concentration camp now.”
Heigo Parsa is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
As of May 2024, Parsa was an organizer with Occupy UofT. In January 2024, UofT student newspaper The Varsity reported that he was a member of Tkarón:to Students in Solidarity with Palestine (TSSP) and a third-year philosophy major at UofT.
As of August 2024, Parsa’s LinkedIn profile said he was studying “Philosophy and Political Science at Western University and University of Toronto St. George,” slated to graduate in 2025. Western is located in London, Ontario.
Also as of August 2024, Parsa’s Facebook bio said he was an opinion contributor at Iranian Canadian Journal. His LinkedIn said he had been a social policy researcher at Iranian Canadian Congress (ICC) since 2021, and its youth committee chair since 2020.
As of the same date, Parsa’s LinkedIn said he lived in London, Ontario.
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