Columbia suspends students after call to end Gaza camp unheeded • FRANCE 24 English

Columbia suspends students after call to end Gaza camp unheeded • FRANCE 24 English

well for the very latest on the student protests in the US let’s bring in our Washington correspondent Fraser Jackson Fraser good morning to you these protests are really starting to build steam across the country yeah we’re starting to see them everywhere from USC in California to the University of Texas in Austin where arrest were made on Monday to Northwestern in Illinois and also in Atlanta as well there were actually two professors arrested in Atlanta on Monday uh and the total Nationwide is well over a thousand at this point although it should be said and not all of them uh are um our students the epicenter the eye of the storm really though Colombia University two weeks ago 100 people were were arrested uh for demanding that Columbia University divest from any businesses that have ties to Israel and that really was what sparked this whole Nationwide protest and things have been intensifying there ever since there had been an encampment on the campus in Colombia which was given a deadline of 2: p.m. by the university to clear out yesterday on Monday uh and that came and went which then to the university deciding to start suspending some students as well in response overnight we saw those students then take over Hamilton Hamilton Hall at the same place that was taken over by students in 1968 who were protesting the Vietnam war that of course now something that Colombia University is now celebrating that uh protest the anti-war protest uh so there some of the students there in Colombia seeing a bit of a a dichotomy there uh now uh we are hearing from the protesters that their demands are the University should divest all interests that it has with any companies tied to Israel especially those with commercial or weapons ties companies that produce weapons as well Colombia so far has has refused to do that and the University students say that they’re not going anywhere even as finals week approaches and the other thing that’s approaching is graduation day Colombia says that it is going to continue with that graduation for now but uh some other universities across the the uh country uh not following that pattern University of Southern California in San Diego canel its graduation due to take place in 2 weeks time now Fraser you are at George Washington University which is right in the heart of DC right now we can see those uh tents behind you there the protests are in their fifth day what’s the feeling like they’re on that campus well I must say the protests here in Washington are much more peaceful than we’ve seen elsewhere there have been no arrests so far uh but they have grown in size since I was here on Thursday last week when there was only about 20 or so uh tents behind me that is now let me uh step out of frame and I’ll bring you into the scene that I’m seeing here as well now um these uh barriers that you can see in the center of uh the encampment here were actually things that have been erected to stop the main uh site of of the encampment where we are now the main Square in George Washington University those barriers had been set up to stop protesters joining this encampment however uh on Monday the uh students decided that that wasn’t uh good enough and that they were going to tear the barriers down uh and they then um threw them all into this pile in the middle of the of the uh in the middle of the uh the square that you can see here they’re now calling this uh The Liberation Zone one protester that I spoke to said that people were willing to risk their future careers for a cause so much greater than themselves uh and GW uh following the the the attack of uh Colombia University uh also started suspending numerous protesters on Friday so even before Colombia started and that was something which was uh angering staff here so much so that the staff actually wrote a letter to the university uh saying that it was gw’s uh um obligation to defend peaceful protest uphold academic freedom and reject all pressures seeking to block access and criminalize peaceful encampments and demonstrations one thing we haven’t really seen in this protest in GW is a heavy police presence and that because the DC police say this has been a peaceful process and they are actually rejecting so far the university calls to come and provide proper backup to the security forces on campus here the police actually staying about a block or so away blocking off the main road uh but as I said this is so far a very peaceful protest here in GW you can see a lot of people uh when they are when they are awake not this early in the morning but a lot of people are just singing and uh painting and some of them even studying for those finals they say again they’re not going anywhere until the the university meets their demands all right Fraser thanks for that that’s our Washington correspondent Fraser Jackson reporting from George Washington University in the heart of DC

Columbia University, the epicenter of pro-Palestinian protests that have upended college campuses across the United States, began suspending student demonstrators on Monday after they defied an ultimatum to disperse. Overnight protesters occupied a campus building, barricading themselves inside while several others formed a human chain outside, according to videos posted on social media. FRANCE 24’s Fraser Jackson reports.
#Palestine #US #Columbia

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