USP students organize pro-Palestine camp

Students from USP (University of São Paulo) began organizing a camp on Tuesday night (May 7, 2024) to demand support measures for the Palestinian population during the conflict that has been going on for 7 months in the Gaza Strip.

This is the first mobilization of its kind in Brazil since university students from the United States and other Western countries began occupying educational institutions to call for a ceasefire in the conflict.

The students from São Paulo are located at the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences and are asking for an official demonstration by USP for the Palestinian cause, as well as the end of partnerships with Israeli universities.

The movement is organized by ESPP (Student Committee in Solidarity with the Palestinian People). On social media, it received support from Fepal (Brazilian Palestine Arab Federation), the São Paulo Palestine Front and the organization Sanaúd – Palestine Youth.

In posts made by participants on Instagram, it is possible to see tents scattered around the university’s Geography and History building. Signs at the site carry slogans and slogans, such as: “Lula, break all relations with Israel” It is “Ceasefire in Gaza”.

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The students also opened a petition asking for “a strong mobilization campaign” for the immediate rupture of all academic and scientific cooperation agreements with the “Zionist, genocidal and racist state of Israel”. They mention partnerships with the University of Haifa, the Hebrew University and Ariel University.

According to protesters, the institutions help Israel to “develop both the technology used in the Palestinian genocide and the scientific and academic bases to support the ideology and the Zionist State”. To date, the initiative has 744 signatures.

O Power360 contacted USP to ask for a position on the registered demonstrations and is awaiting a response.

CAMP IN NEW YORK

The movement started by USP students works in a similar way to the camp created by students at Columbia University, in New York. North American students have been mobilizing since April 17 to request financial and academic separation from Israel.

Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine accuses the university of being “accomplice” of “genocide in Gaza”. They wrote: “Resuming our campus is the only and final response to an institution that obeys neither its own ‘rules’ nor its ethical principles”.

In late April, the university announced that it began suspending students who refused to vacate the camp. The university’s president, Minouche Shafik, declared that she will not give in to the protesters’ demands.

“While the University will not divest from Israel, it has offered to create an accelerated timeline for review of new student proposals by the Advisory Committee for Socially Responsible Investment, the body that evaluates divestment issues.”wrote Shafik, in a statement.