Police deployed a heavy presence on US university campuses Wednesday after forcibly clearing away some weeks-long protests against Israel’s war with Hamas.

Dozens of police cars patrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles campus in response to violent clashes overnight when counter-protesters attacked an encampment of pro-Palestinian students.

At Columbia University in New York City, which has been the epicenter of the demonstrations, police were on standby after officers marched onto campus late Tuesday to end the protests there.

The sight of helmeted police at two of America’s most prestigious universities left some students dismayed.

“I don’t think we should have a heavy police force on campus,” UCLA student Mark Torre, 22, told AFP as he surveyed the scene from behind metal barriers.

“But more and more, day by day, I think it’s a necessary evil, to at least keep safety on campus.”

At Columbia and at the City University of New York, where police cleared demonstrators out overnight, some students decried “rough and aggressive” tactics used by officers.

“We were assaulted, brutally arrested. And I was held for up to six hours before being released, pretty banged up, got stomped on, got cut up,” one CUNY student who gave his name only as Jose told AFP.

A medical student offering treatment to student detainees as they were released described a litany of injuries.

“We’ve seen things like severe head traumas, concussions, someone was knocked unconscious in the encampment by police, someone was thrown down the stairs,” the student, who gave her name as Isabel, said.

About 300 arrests were made at Columbia and CUNY, Police Commissioner Edward Caban told a news conference Wednesday.

Mayor Eric Adams blamed “outside agitators” for ratcheting up tensions. Students at Columbia have denied that outsiders were involved.

The university’s president Minouche Shafik, who has come under fire over her decision to call in police, said Wednesday the turn of events “filled me with deep sadness.”

“I am sorry we reached this point,” she said in a statement.

Wave of campus unrest

Demonstrators have gathered in at least 30 US universities since last month, often erecting tent encampments to protest the soaring death count from Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip.

The protests have posed a challenge to university administrators trying to balance free speech rights with complaints of criminal activity, anti-Semitism and hate speech.

The administration of President Joe Biden — whose support for Israel has outraged many protesters — has also tried to walk that line.

“We believe it’s a small number of students who are causing this disruption, and if they’re going to protest, Americans have the right to do it in a peaceful way within the law,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

Biden’s rival in the November election, Donald Trump, voiced his full-throated support for the police response at Columbia.

“It was a beautiful thing to watch. New York’s finest,” he told a rally in Wisconsin.

“To every college president, I say remove the encampments immediately, vanquish the radicals and take back our campuses for all of the normal students.”

‘Unlawful assembly’

On Tuesday night, police had entered Columbia’s campus and climbed into Hamilton Hall — barricaded by protesters — via a second-floor window before leading out people in handcuffs. They also cleared the large tent encampment.

In Los Angeles, fireworks were hurled as counter-protesters sprayed chemical substances onto the pro-Palestinian encampment and attempted to tear down wooden boards and metal barricades before police eventually arrived.

On Wednesday, students on loudspeakers called for demonstrators to keep going at a camp blocking the entrance to one of the school’s main libraries, which bore graffiti reading: “Free Gaza.”

And students at Fordham University, a Jesuit institution also in New York, launched their own campus protest on Wednesday, according to US media.

Elsewhere, police moved in at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and arrested several protesters, TV footage showed.

Law enforcement in helmets and carrying batons arrived at the University of Texas in Dallas and began taking down parts of a student encampment there, according to TV images.

At the University of Arizona, police said they used “chemical irritant munitions” to disperse “an unlawful assembly.”

The Gaza war started when Hamas militants staged an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 that left around 1,170 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 34,500 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Campuses of several US Universities have been witnessing massive protests with the students seeking a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas. Police have arrested over 550 protesters and some universities are witnessing violent clashes between cops and the activists.

Law enforcement officials at the behest of college administrators have deployed tasers and tear gas against students protesters at Atlanta’s Emory University, even though the protests have been largely peaceful, say activists and media personnel present at the spot.

Emil’ Keme, professor of English and Indigenous studies, at the University said that the scene reminded him of the civil war in Guatemala as a teenager.

“Police immediately began to force people to move. I felt like I was in a war zone, with all the police and their weapons, the rubber bullets. We were pushed away,” Mr Keme told the Guardian describing what happened as soon as cops entered the Emory campus.

“Police took the student next to me, pushed an older lady nearby and then pushed me.”

Student protesters say they are expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the death toll has topped 34,305, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. They want universities to cut their investments in everything tied to Israel and weapons that fuel the war in Gaza. That means funds run by BlackRock, Google as well as Amazon’s cloud service, Lockheed Martin and even Airbnb.

Video circulated widely on social media shows two women who identified themselves as professors being detained, with one of them slammed to the ground by one officer as a second officer then pushes her chest and face onto a concrete sidewalk.

FULL VIDEO OF ELDERLY AMERICAN ECONOMICS PROFESSOR CAROLINE FOHLIN BEING ASSAULTED BY POLICE

She is an over 65 year old American woman.

Americans attacked for Israel.

What if this was your mother/grandmother? pic.twitter.com/ne7uDsPGIX

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) April 26, 2024

#BREAKING: Chaos has Unleashed at Emory University as Georgia Police Deploy Tasers, Rubber Bullets, and Tear Gas Against Protesters⁰⁰#Atlanta | #Georgia ⁰
Moments ago at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, hundreds of students, pro-Palestine protesters, and other… pic.twitter.com/LEwwGuKBEn

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) April 25, 2024

Atlanta police and Georgia troopers are leading a joint operation within the campus to dismantle the tents and camps the activists have set up at the school’s quadrangle. Within minutes of the authorities entering the campus, 28 people, 20 of whom were “Emory community members”, had been arrested, the institute said in a statement.

The school president said that the videos of police clashing with the students “are shocking” and that he is “horrified horrified that members of our community had to experience and witness such interactions.”

The university’s response was likely the quickest show of police force in response to a divestment protest among the dozens nationwide that have occurred in recent weeks. It was also probably the only one where pepper balls, stun guns and rubber bullets were used.

Columbia’s embattled president came under renewed pressure on Friday as a university oversight committee met to address her attempt two weeks ago to clamp down on protests that have roiled the Ivy League school and spread across the country and aboard.

President Nemat Minouche Shafik faced an outcry from many students, faculty and outside observers for summoning New York police to campus on April 18 to dismantle an encampment of tents set up by protesters against Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

Police arrested more than 100 people that day and removed the tents from the main lawn of the school’s Manhattan campus, but the protesters quickly returned and set up the encampment again, narrowing Columbia’s options on shutting down the protest.

Since then, hundreds of protesters have been arrested at schools from California to Boston as students set up encampments similar to the one at Columbia, demanding that their schools divest from companies involved in Israel’s military.

Like-minded protests against Israel’s actions have spread overseas, as well, with tensions flaring in front of Paris’ prestigious Sciences Po university on Friday as pro-Israeli protesters came to challenge pro-Palestinian students occupying the building. Police had to move in to keep the two sides apart.

At Columbia, the university senate will hold a hearing on Friday afternoon to vote on a resolution about the president’s actions that could range from an expression of displeasure to an outright censure.

The White House has defended free speech on campus, but Democratic President Joe Biden denounced “antisemitic protests” this week and stressed that campuses must be safe.

Some Republicans in Congress have accused Shafik and other university administrators of being too soft on protesters and allowing Jewish students to be harassed on their campuses.

After failing to squelch the protests two weeks ago, Columbia administrators have turned to negotiating with students, so far without success. The school has set two deadlines for an agreement this week – the latest at 4 a.m. on Friday – both of which came and went without a deal being struck.

“The talks have shown progress and are continuing as planned,” Shafik’s office wrote in a brief email to the university community late on Thursday night. “We have our demands; they have theirs. A formal process is under way and continues.”

TEXAS CLASH

The president of the University of Texas at Austin, Jay Hartzell, faced a similar backlash from faculty on Friday, two days after he joined with Republican Governor Greg Abbott in calling in police to break up a pro-Palestinian protest.

Dozens of protesters were arrested but charges against most were dropped the next day.

Nearly 200 members of the faculty at the university signed a letter dated April 25, saying they have no confidence in Hartzell after he “needlessly put students, staff and faculty in danger” when hundreds of officers clad in riot gear and on horseback swept away the protests.

Hartzell in a statement said he made the decision on grounds that protest organizers aimed to “severely disrupt” the campus for a long period.

The clash in Texas was one of many that broke out this week between demonstrators and police summoned by university leaders, who say encampments constitute unauthorized protests, jeopardize the safety of students, and at times, subject Jewish students to antisemitism and harassment.

Civil rights groups have condemned the arrests and urged authorities to respect free speech rights. The activists behind the protests say their aim is to pressure schools to divest from companies that contribute to Israeli military actions in Gaza, and blame any hostile behavior on outsiders seeking to hijack the movement.

While Columbia remains the epicenter of the student protest movement, the national spotlight has shifted to new campuses – from the University of Southern California (USC) to Atlanta’s Emory University to Boston’s Emerson College – nearly every day this week. USC this week canceled its main May 10 graduation ceremony, saying newly required security measures would have placed excessive delays on crowd control.

On Friday, about 200 protesters gathered at George Washington University, a few blocks from the White House, carrying “Free Palestine” posters, wearing black and white Palestinian keffiyehs and chanting slogans.

“We will pursue disciplinary actions against the GW students involved in these unauthorized demonstrations that continue to disrupt university operations,” the university said.

Authorities also began making arrests at a protest encampment at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, on Friday.

A livestream by the organizer showed dozens of demonstrators setting up tents on lawns on campus. Police moved in within half an hour, telling protesters they could not camp there but could stay if they didn’t have tents

California’s Cal Poly Humboldt, a public university in Arcata, said it had shut down its campus through the weekend and moved all classes online, as protesters continued a weeklong occupation of a school building.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

There should be a right balance of freedom of expression and a sense of responsibility, the government has said about the pro-Palestine protests raging at top US universities. The protests, which demand divestment from Israel-linked entities, have forced several universities to switch to virtual classes and led to confrontations between students and the police.

Asked about the protests, foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said they are always in touch with Indian students studying in US universities.

“We have seen reports on the matter and have been following related events. In every democracy, there has to be the right balance between freedom of expression, a sense of responsibility and public safety and order. Democracies in particular should display this understanding in regard to other fellow democracies. After all, we are all judged by what we do at home and not what we say abroad,” said Mr Jaiswal.

He also said that if there are issues linked to Indian students that have to be resolved, authorities will look into those.

India supports a two-nation solution to the Israel-Palestine issue, which includes the establishment of a sovereign state of Palestine with recognized borders.

The White House, too, yesterday said President Biden backed free speech and debate on college campuses.

Pro-Palestine protests denouncing the rising deaths in Gaza, which began at the Columbia University last week, have spread to more campuses across the US, the strongest ally of Israel. Over a hundred students have been arrested for campus occupation, which Jewish students claim to be antisemitic.

The protesting students demand a ceasefire to the war, an end to US military aid to Israel, and the withdrawal of university investments from arms suppliers and companies benefiting the war.

At Columbia University, over 100 students were arrested after a pro-Palestine rally was dispersed by the cops last week. Amid spiralling tensions, it cancelled in-person classes last Monday and switched to virtual learning. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who visited the Columbia campus on Wednesday, faced jeers that he denounced as a “mob rule” and “virus of antisemitism”.

At the University of Texas in Austin, police in riot gear were deployed to face off with students who walked out chanting “down with occupation”. Over 20 protesters were arrested during the protests on Wednesday. Fifty more protesters were arrested at the University of California in Los Angeles and another 130 at the New York University.

Protests have also erupted at Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), UC Berkeley, the University of Michigan, and Brown. At Harvard and other top universities, students have been setting up tents on the campus as part of an encampment exercise to protest the Gaza deaths.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had condemned the protests at US colleges as “horrific” and said “antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities.”

New Delhi:

There should be a right balance of freedom of expression and a sense of responsibility, the government has said about the pro-Palestine protests raging at top US universities. The protests, which demand divestment from Israel-linked entities, have forced several universities to switch to virtual classes and led to confrontations between students and the police.

Asked about the protests, foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said they are always in touch with Indian students studying in US universities.

“We have seen reports on the matter and have been following related events. In every democracy, there has to be the right balance between freedom of expression, a sense of responsibility and public safety and order. Democracies in particular should display this understanding in regard to other fellow democracies. After all, we are all judged by what we do at home and not what we say abroad,” said Mr Jaiswal.

He also said that if there are issues linked to Indian students that have to be resolved, authorities will look into those.

India supports a two-nation solution to the Israel-Palestine issue, which includes the establishment of a sovereign state of Palestine with recognized borders.

The White House, too, yesterday said President Biden backed free speech and debate on college campuses.

Pro-Palestine protests denouncing the rising deaths in Gaza, which began at the Columbia University last week, have spread to more campuses across the US, the strongest ally of Israel. Over a hundred students have been arrested for campus occupation, which Jewish students claim to be antisemitic.

The protesting students demand a ceasefire to the war, an end to US military aid to Israel, and the withdrawal of university investments from arms suppliers and companies benefiting the war.

At Columbia University, over 100 students were arrested after a pro-Palestine rally was dispersed by the cops last week. Amid spiralling tensions, it cancelled in-person classes last Monday and switched to virtual learning. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who visited the Columbia campus on Wednesday, faced jeers that he denounced as a “mob rule” and “virus of antisemitism”.

At the University of Texas in Austin, police in riot gear were deployed to face off with students who walked out chanting “down with occupation”. Over 20 protesters were arrested during the protests on Wednesday. Fifty more protesters were arrested at the University of California in Los Angeles and another 130 at the New York University.

Protests have also erupted at Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), UC Berkeley, the University of Michigan, and Brown. At Harvard and other top universities, students have been setting up tents on the campus as part of an encampment exercise to protest the Gaza deaths.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had condemned the protests at US colleges as “horrific” and said “antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities.”