Toronto, Canada – When University of Waterloo student Nicholas Sarweh received an email from the school informing him he was being sued for 1.5 million Canadian dollars ($1.09m), he was certain it was a mistake.
“I thought it said $1,500 and that they had made a typo. But after a while, I just absorbed that it was $1.5 million,” Sarweh, who is in his early 20s, told Al Jazeera.
Sarweh had been among the students on campus leading a months-long protest against Israel’s war on Gaza, erecting tents, fences and protest signs on a grassy part of campus called Grad House green.
But by the end of June, much of the public attention surrounding the protest had died down. Many students had returned home for the summer.
That’s when the email arrived, Sarweh said, accusing him and …