Students occupy NYC campus building in pro-Palestinian protest
UN troubled by treatment of protesters
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Columbia University barricaded themselves inside a campus building early Tuesday as pro-Palestinian protests upend campuses across the United States.
The occupation of Hamilton Hall at the prestigious university in New York came hours after administrators said they had begun suspending students for failing to comply with an order to disperse.
Masked individuals smashed windows and moved metal tables to block the building’s entrances, images shared overnight on social media showed.
“After 206 days of genocide and over 34,000 Palestinian martyrs, Columbia community members took back Hamilton Hall just after midnight,” the group said in a statement citing Israel’s war in Gaza.
It said the group had renamed the building “Hind’s Hall” in honor of a six-year-old Gazan girl killed by Israel during its ongoing offensive on the Palestinian territory.
The demonstrators vowed to remain at the hall until their demands are met, including that Columbia divest all financial holdings linked to Israel.
Arrests in universities
Protests have swept through higher education institutions from coast to coast, with many erecting tent encampments on campus grounds, after around 100 protesters were first arrested at Columbia university on April 18. More than 900 people have been arrested by the US police since the anti-Israel campaign started at the Columbia university.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, police moved in Tuesday morning to clear one encampment, and could be seen in social media images detaining a few protesters.
TV footage showed police at the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond on Monday evening pushing and shoving away protesters, with students saying teargas and pepper spray was deployed.
Protests against the Gaza war have posed a challenge to university administrators trying to balance free speech rights with complaints that the rallies have veered into anti-Semitism and hate.
Footage of police in riot gear summoned at various colleges to break up rallies has been viewed around the world, recalling the protest movement that erupted during the Vietnam War. UN human rights chief Volker Turk voiced concern Tuesday at the heavy-handed steps taken to disperse the protests, saying that “freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly are fundamental to society.”
He added that “incitement to violence or hatred on grounds of identity or viewpoints – whether real or assumed – must be strongly repudiated.”
Some demonstrations have also arisen outside the US in solidarity with Palestinians, including at the University of British Columbia’s Point Grey campus in Vancouver and at McGill University in Montreal.
Similar protests in world
The protests have spread to other countries including France, Germany and Australia. Iranian students also held demonstrations on Monday in support of the student protests in the US.
Dozens of Lebanese students also gathered at the prestigious American University of Beirut (AUB), some wearing the traditional Arab keffiyeh scarf that has long been a symbol of the Palestinian cause, to protest against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“We are Palestine’s neighbors. If we do not stand with them today, who will?” asked AUB student Zeina, 23, declining to provide her surname.
“Around the world, students my age, from our generation, are the ones raising their voices,” she added.
Since October 7, Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip have killed more than 34,500 Palestinians so far – mostly women and children. The regime attacks have also displaced millions of Palestinians across the besieged territory.