Police Loom as Pro-Palestine Students Occupy Columbia University

Source: Mother Jones

Police gathered in force outside of Columbia University on Wednesday, after students convened in the pre-dawn hours to erect dozens of camping tents on a campus lawn. The demonstration backing Palestine was launched hours before president Minouche Shafik began testifying at a Congressional hearing addressing allegations of anti-semitism on campus in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.

The students are part of the Columbia University Apartheid Divest coalition, which formed after administrators suspended chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace this fall, claiming violations of campus safety and event planning rules.

Today’s divestment coalition is similarly demanding the university’s board cut all funding ties with weapons manufacturers that have been supplying Israel, as well as, according to organizer Isra Hirsi, extend amnesty to pro-Palestinian students who have been punished for past campus actions.



Read more: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/04/columbia-gaza-occupation/

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On their live feed, Al Jazeera say reporters are being barred from entering campus. They also interviewed a (covid-style) masked student protester who fears "further" reprisals against student protesters "of all races and faiths." Apparently as the University President gets dragged before another anti-education Congressional kangaroo hearing over the MAGA GOPs allegations of "anti-semitism" on campus, the University has also or instead been persecuting protesters urging the university to divest from Israel.

Curiouser and curiouser.