Police arrest Columbia students, clear occupied building in campus unrest

New York, United States – AFP

Dozens of helmeted police flooded Columbia University’s campus in the heart of New York City on Tuesday to evict a building occupied by pro-Palestinian student protesters and detain demonstrators.

Police climbed into Hamilton Hall via a second floor window they reached from a laddered truck, before leading handcuffed students out of the building into police vans.

The hall had been occupied at dawn Tuesday by demonstrators who vowed they would fight any eviction, as they protested the soaring death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza.

After midnight on Wednesday, an AFP journalist saw that a tent encampment erected on the campus lawn had been taken down by university staff and leftover items thrown away in giant black rubbish bags.

The action came as university administrators around the United States have struggled for weeks to contain pro-Palestinian demonstrations on dozens of campuses.

In a letter addressed to the New York Police Department, Columbia University president Minouche Shafik said that the occupation of the school building was being led by “individuals who are not affiliated with the University” and asked “NYPD’s help to clear all individuals from Hamilton Hall and all campus encampments.”

She also asked the police to remain on campus through at least May 17, “to ensure encampments are not reestablished.” Commencement is scheduled for May 15.

Writing on Instagram, the protesters slammed Shafik’s statement, saying “her use of the words ‘care’ and ‘safety’ are nothing short of horrifying.”

The weeks of demonstrations — the most sweeping and prolonged unrest to rock US college campuses since the Vietnam war protests of the 1960s and 70s — have already led to several hundred arrests of students and other activists.

Protesters at Columbia were seen earlier using ropes to hoist crates of supplies up to the building’s second floor, apparently signaling the students had planned to hunker down.

– A nationwide movement –

The protests, with Columbia at their epicenter, have posed a challenge to university administrators trying to balance free speech rights with complaints that the rallies have veered into anti-Semitism and hate.

The unrest has swept through US higher education institutions like wildfire, with many student protesters erecting tent encampments on campuses from coast to coast.

At Columbia, demonstrators have vowed to remain until their demands are met, including that the school divest all financial holdings linked to Israel.

The university has rejected the demand. Columbia has warned that students occupying the building face expulsion.

In one of the newest clashes, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, police moved in Tuesday to clear one encampment, detaining some protesters in a tense showdown.

At northern California’s Cal Poly Humboldt, a week-long occupation was brought to a dramatic end early Tuesday when police arrested nearly three dozen protesters who had seized buildings, forcing the closure of the campus.

In Oregon, Portland State University’s campus was closed Tuesday “due to an ongoing incident” in the library, college authorities said, after local media reported around 50 protesters had broken into the building a day earlier.

Footage of police in riot gear summoned at various colleges has been viewed around the world.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk voiced concern at the heavy-handed steps taken to disperse the campus protests, saying “freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly are fundamental to society.”

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 34,535 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the local health ministry.