Columbia Uni. withdraws deadline for dispersing pro-Palestine protests
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US police have been making large-scale arrests in universities all over the country, even using chemical irritants and tasers to stop the protesters who are expressing solidarity for Palestine.
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Students and other protesters are in a tent camp on the campus of Columbia University in New York on Wednesday, April 24, 2024.(AP)
Late on April 25, Columbia University went back on an overnight deadline set for pro-Palestine protesters to leave their encampment, amid more college campuses in the United States attempting to stop such protests from taking place.
US police made large-scale arrests in universities all over the country, and even used chemical irritants and tasers to stop the protesters who are expressing solidarity for Palestine.
Columbia University is still the center of the student protest movement as it is where these protests began.
In a statement released at 11:07 pm (03:07 GMT today), the office of Columbia University President Minouche Shafik went back on the midnight deadline to disperse a large tent camp with around 200 students.
The statement said, "The talks have shown progress and are continuing as planned," adding, "We have our demands; they have theirs."
"This rumor is false," it said in an attempt to deny that New York City police were called to the campus.
Speaking with AFP, one of the students, identifying as Mimi, said that she had been at the camp for seven days, emphasizing, "They call us terrorists, they call us violent. But... they're the ones that called in the police when students were sitting in a circle."
"The police are the ones with guns, the police are the ones with tasers, we only have our voices," she stressed.
Police state?
On April 24 and early 25, the police arrested more than 200 protesters at universities in Los Angeles, Boston, and Austin, Texas.
However, around 2,000 protesters gathered again on April 25.
At Emory University in Atlanta, in the southern state of Georgia, chemical irritants and tasers were used by riot officers to dismantle the protesters. Police were seen in photographs wielding tasers.
The Atlanta Police Department claimed that officers, called in by the school, were "met with violence" and used "chemical irritants" in their response.
Police arrested 93 protesters, which authorities claimed were trespassing on April 24 at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. The university also canceled events at its graduation ceremony on May 10.
As reported by local media, police also arrested 108 protesters as they dismantled an encampment at Emerson College in Boston on April 25.
Anti-semitic claims debunked by Jewish protesters
Even though many people attempted to label these protests as anti-semitic, many Jewish people among the protesters refuted these claims and criticized officials who are conflating it with being against Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Speaking with AFP, a Jewish 33-year-old graduate student at the University of Texas in Austin said, "People are here in support of Palestinian people from all different backgrounds... [compelled by] their general sense of justice."
Determination and persistence
Students from Georgetown University and George Washington University (GW) in Washington launched a solidarity encampment on the GW campus on April 25.
New York University and Yale, whose protesters were also arrested earlier this wake, witnessed protests and encampments alongside Harvard, Brown University, MIT, the University of Michigan, and elsewhere.
As protesters have flooded the buildings of California State Polytechnic University Humboldt, it said that its campus will possibly stay closed until next week.
