Columbia University in New York (United States) has postponed the deadline for Friday at midnight (6 a.m. Paris time) for pro-Palestinian students to evacuate the campus, which was occupied to protest against the war in the Strip. from Gaza, she announced.
“Negotiations have progressed and are continuing as planned”said the office of the president of the New York university, Minouche Shafik, in a press release published Thursday evening. “We have our demands, they have theirs”continues the presidential office, denying that police intervention was requested.
“They call us terrorists, they call us violent. But the only tool we have is our voices”declared one of the students participating in the occupation and introducing herself under the name of Mimi.
Major movement in American universities
The pro-Palestinian American student movement, which has become widespread on American campuses, left Columbia University more than a week ago. Some of the most prestigious universities in the world are affected, such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton.
Dozens of arrests took place last week, after university officials called on the police to put an end to an occupation accused by several figures of stoking anti-Semitism. Pro-Palestinian demonstrations then continued on Wednesday on campus.
More than 200 demonstrators were again arrested Wednesday and Thursday at universities in Los Angeles (California), Boston (Massachusetts) and Austin (Texas), where some 2,000 people gathered again on Thursday. Early Thursday, a new encampment was set up on the campus of George Washington University in the capital. At UCLA University in Los Angeles, more than 200 students set up a mini-village of around thirty tents, barricaded by pallets and signs. Near the pro-Palestinian rally, around thirty students organized a counter-demonstration.
The scenes follow one another and are similar: students set up tents on their campuses, to denounce the military support of the United States for Israel and the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip. Then they are dislodged, often in a harsh manner, by police officers in riot gear, at the request of university management.
On the campus of Emory University in Atlanta, in the southeast of the United States, demonstrators were evacuated manu militari by the police, some thrown to the ground to be arrested, according to images from a photojournalist from the ‘France Media Agency. The Atlanta police, for their part, admitted to having used agents “chemical irritants” against the demonstrators, facing the ” violence “ of some of them.
The World Application
The Morning of the World
Every morning, find our selection of 20 articles not to be missed
Download the app
USC University in Los Angeles, where ninety-three people were arrested on Wednesday, announced Thursday the cancellation of its main graduation ceremony this year, officially due to “new security measures”. Jason Miller, an advisor to Donald Trump, seized on the announcement, saying on X that, “under Joe Biden, your graduation ceremony will not be guaranteed” to unfold.
The White House, for its part, assures that Mr. Biden, who hopes to be re-elected in November, “supports freedom of expression, debate and non-discrimination” in universities.