WASHINGTON DC, Friday, April 26, 2024 (WAFA) - From Los Angeles to New York, Austin to Boston, Chicago to Atlanta, American students and faculty members at major US universities continue to mobilize in support of the Palestinian cause despite the police crackdown and the dozens of arrests at many colleges.
Encampments in solidarity with the Palestinian people have been staged at globally renowned institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Princeton.
Students have expanded their presence by erecting more tents on campuses, amplifying their message to local communities and policymakers in Washington, calling for immediate intervention to halt the war and support Palestinian rights.
Efforts are underway to pressure the US administration to divest from Israel and boycott companies supporting its occupation, as well as to boycott complicit Israeli universities in the genocide against Palestinians.
These protests began last week at Columbia University in New York, where a group of students decided to stage an open sit-in encampment on campus, condemning the aggression against the Palestinian people.
There have nearly been 550 protest-related arrests in the past week at major US universities, according to a tally by news agency Reuters.
Some universities have called in police to quell the demonstrations, resulting in injuries and arrests, while others appear to be biding their time as the academic semester enters its final days.
At Boston's Emerson College, 108 nonviolent protesters were arrested overnight by police, who appeared in a video forcefully moving through the crowd, throwing some students to the ground.
At Emory University's Atlanta campus, 28 people were detained and the local branch of activist group Jewish Voice For Peace said police used tear gas and tasers on protesters.
At Indiana University Bloomington, police with shields and batons shoved into a line of protesters, arresting 33 people.
At City College of New York, police officers retreated from protests, to cheers from the hundreds of students gathered on the lawn on the Harlem campus.
At California State Polytechnic University in Humboldt, students have been barricaded in a campus building since Monday, with staff trying to negotiate.
At University of Connecticut one protester was arrested and tents torn down, while protests continued at Stanford University and the New Jersey campus of Princeton University.
At New York's Columbia University, where the protest movement began, university officials remain locked in a stalemate with students.
Police cleared tents and arrested more than 100 people last week but students put the tents up again in an area where graduation ceremonies will be held in a few weeks.
The administration has given protesters until Friday to leave.
M.N
