Student sit-ins dismantled in NY and France

The Angels. As operations to dismantle pro-Palestinian protests intensify at universities in the United States and in rejection of President Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s war against the Gaza Strip, the police yesterday evicted a camp at New York University (NYU). ), and another at The New School, in Greenwich Village. Meanwhile, the New York prosecutor’s office began an investigation into the performance of the officer who fired his firearm during the eviction of the building taken over by protesters at Columbia University this week.

The NYU camp was removed at the request of academic authorities, after weeks of pro-Palestinian protests on campuses across the United States, in which repression has left 2,200 detained.

The New York police also intervened to clear the camp at The New School in the Greenwich Village neighborhood. The deputy commissioner of operations, Kaz Daughtry, published on the social network requested help to disperse the illegal camps inside his university center building and residence.

A video posted by Daughtry showed dozens of officers gathered in front of the school on lower Fifth Avenue. There were no reports of arrests at NYU or the New School.

Earlier this week, more than 100 people were arrested during an evacuation of common areas at Columbia University, where protests and encampments against the war in Gaza began.

An officer fired his weapon inside Columbia’s Hamilton Hall during the operation Tuesday, authorities said. No one was injured, the New York police reported yesterday. The uniformed man explained that he was trying to use the flashlight attached to the gun and, instead, he fired a bullet that hit the wall.

There were other officers, but no students in the vicinity, according to authorities. Body camera footage shows the moment the officer’s weapon was fired and the district attorney’s office is conducting a review, a spokesman for the office led by prosecutor Alvin Bragg confirmed yesterday.

In the image, students at the University of Chicago demonstrate. Ap Photo

According to the spokesman, Doug Cohen, the first investigations indicate that the agent was not targeting anyone, reported the local news portal The City.

According to a count by The Associated Press news agency, at least 56 incidents of arrest have been recorded at 43 higher education institutions in the United States since April 18. The figures are based on statements from universities and police forces.

On the other hand, early on Thursday elements of the public force attacked a crowd of protesters at the University of California (UCLA), in Los Angeles, and arrested 200 of them, after they defied orders to leave, some formed human chains as police fired stun grenades to disperse the crowd. Riot officers tore down a barricade fortified with plywood, platforms, metal fences and garbage containers, as well as awnings and tents.

As at UCLA, the protest camps, calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or with companies they say support the war in Gaza, have spread to campuses across the country, in a unprecedented student movement in this century.

Israel has called the protests anti-Semitic, while critics say the Israeli government is using these accusations to silence students who oppose the genocide in Gaza. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making anti-Semitic comments or uttering violent threats, protest organizers – some of whom are Jewish – say it is a peaceful movement to defend Palestinian rights and protest against the war. in Gaza.

President Joe Biden yesterday broke his silence on the university protests and in a televised statement from the White House he strongly condemned students and other protesters who, in his opinion, have taken their grievances about the war too far. But he rejected Republican calls to deploy the National Guard to regain control at the universities.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International (AI) criticized the police repression exercised against students and urged rectors to guarantee the right to peaceful protest on their campuses.

We urge university administrations to safeguard and facilitate the right of students to peacefully and safely protest or carry out counter-protests on their campuses.indicated the executive director of AI in the United States, Paul O’Brien.