More than 200 people were detained this Saturday (27) at four universities in the United States during pro-Palestine protests.
According to The New York Times, protesters were detained at Northeastern University, Arizona State University, Indiana University and Washington University in St. Louis, as police try to contain the growth in the number of protests in US colleges.
As a result, the number of protesters arrested since the protests began on April 18 has reached 700. The wave of protests has reached some of the most prestigious universities in the USA, such as Columbia, Harvard and Yale.
Protesters are against Israel’s role in the war against the terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip — and ask that educational institutions cut ties with Israel and also with companies that, according to students, make the war viable.
The epicenter of this movement is Columbia University, in NY, where there is a camp of activists with Palestinian flags and messages of solidarity with Gaza.
This Saturday at Washington University in St. Louis, more than 80 arrests were made and the campus was closed for the night, according to a statement from university authorities.
The note, according to The New York Times, adds that campus police were still processing the arrests.
Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for the 2024 presidential election, was among the protesters detained, along with her campaign coordinator and another staff member, a campaign spokesperson said.
On Saturday morning at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, protesters set up a camp in the campus’s Centennial Common this week and attracted more than 100 supporters. The administration asked protesters to leave, but many students did not obey the order to leave.
Massachusetts state police arrived at the scene in the early hours of Saturday and began arresting the protesters, handcuffing them and dismantling several tents.
Dozens of students are arrested in pro-Palestine demonstrations in the USA
They said they arrested 102 protesters. It was not clear how many of those arrested were students. The university said students who showed their university ID cards were being released.
By 11 a.m. Saturday, most of the camp had been cleared.
The mass arrest at Northeastern was the second Saturday morning crackdown on protesters on a Boston campus in less than a week. On Thursday morning, city police officers arrested 118 people at Emerson College after protesters refused to leave the camp and formed a barricade.
At Arizona State University, school police arrested 69 people Saturday morning after they set up an unauthorized camp, which violates university policy.
The university said protesters created an encampment and that the group was told several times to disperse.
At Indiana University, where university police arrested 33 people at a camp earlier this week, campus and state police arrested 23 more protesters on Saturday. Authorities said a group “erected numerous tents and awnings Friday night with the stated intention of occupying university space indefinitely.”
Universities across the country used different strategies last week to quell protests. Some pushed back and sought to defuse tensions, while at other colleges, such as the University of Southern California and Emory University, police rushed to break up encampments and arrest students and faculty members.
At Harvard, access to its Harvard Yard history was restricted, allowing entry only to those who presented a university ID card. The university also suspended a pro-Palestine group, but the group and its supporters nevertheless set up a camp in the courtyard.
