Pro-Palestine protesters at Columbia University have been arrested as police raided their ‘Gaza solidarity camp.’
Minouche Shafik, the school’s president who testified before congress about rampant anti-Semitism remarks on campus, authorized the arrests.
‘I regret that all of these attempts to resolve the situation were rejected by the students involved. As a result, NYPD officers are now on campus and the process of clearing the encampment is underway,’ Shafik said.
Video shows police raiding an encampment protesters set up on campus in ‘solidarity in Gaza’ hours before Shafik was scheduled to testify before the House Education and Workforce Committee about rampant anti-Semitism remarks on campus on Wednesday.
Officers dressed in riot gear arrived at the campus around 1:30 p.m. and began arresting students.
Pro-Palestine protesters at Columbia University have been arrested as police raided their ‘ Gaza solidarity camp’
Protesters set up on campus in ‘solidarity in Gaza’ hours before Shafik was scheduled to testify before the House Education and Workforce Committee about rampant anti-Semitism
‘At the request of Columbia officials, we are on scene to disperse protestors who have erected an unlawful encampment on campus,’ NYPD Deputy Commissioner, Operations Kaz Daughtry said.
‘School officials had previously determined that the encampment and related disruptions pose a clear and present danger to the substantial functioning of the University.’
It is unclear exactly how many students were arrested, but The New York Times reported at least three NYPD buses had been filled with detained protesters.
As arrests were being made, some protesters chanted ‘NYPD KKK,’ according to CBS New York.
‘There was no point of ever working with the police. Like every single step of the way, they were escalating it,’ said a protester named Selena said.
‘Columbia has shown over and over they don’t care about students’ rights, voices or safety,’ said Aidan Parisi
Shafik said she tried to warn the students that they would be punished if they did not disperse.
‘Through direct conversations and in writing, the university provided multiple notices of these violations, including a written warning at 7:15 p.m. on Wednesday notifying students who remained in the encampment as of 9:00 p.m. that they would face suspension pending investigation,’ Shafik said.
‘We also tried through a number of channels to engage with their concerns and offered to continue discussions if they agreed to disperse.’
The Ivy League chief defended the ‘peaceful’ demonstrations and the students’ right to free speech in the surge of anti-Semitic rhetoric since the start of the Gaza war
Presidential candidate Cornell West addressed the protesters and said, ‘I just want to say I stand here in solidarity with you. I stand in solidarity with human suffering.’
Inspired by the occupation of the university’s Hamilton Hall in 1968 against the Vietnam War, students gathered at what they called the ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment’ to demand the school administration to divest from companies affiliated with Israel
Around 60 tents dotted the campus’s south lawn, featuring two large signs declaring ‘liberated zone’ and ‘Gaza solidarity encampment.’
The Ivy League chief defended the ‘peaceful’ demonstrations and the students’ right to free speech in the surge of anti-Semitic rhetoric since the start of the Gaza war that led to the resignations of Harvard President Claudine Gay and Yale President Liz Magill.
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