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01-05-2024
NEW YORK: Dozens of pro-Palestine demonstrators at Columbia University have escalated their protest over the war in Gaza by occupying an academic building.
Activists at the university in New York City seized Hamilton Hall early on Tuesday, barricading themselves inside.
One student said the campus was “lawless”, as officials grapple with the long-running demo which has prompted a wave of rallies elsewhere.
Columbia has urged students and staff to stay away from campus on Tuesday.
It earlier began suspending students who defied Monday’s deadline of 14:00 EST (18:00 GMT) to leave their two-week encampment nearby but as the deadline passed, dozens of students rallied at the site.
Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), one of the main protest groups, vowed to defy the order in a post on X and called on activists to “protect the encampment”.
The group later announced the takeover of Hamilton Hall, highlighting that the venue was also the focus of student protests in 1968.
Another group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), said it had “reclaimed” the building in honor of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl found dead in Gaza earlier this year.
One student described the campus as “lawless, utter anarchy”, with demonstrators breaking the building’s windows to enter, before blocking the doors with furniture.
Speaking to media, Jessica Schwalb said the group had entered with “bags full of stuff”, adding; “I’m guessing they’re going to be living in there indefinitely.”
Demonstrations have rocked campuses across the US in recent weeks, sparked by New York police clearing an earlier encampment at Columbia.
Hundreds of people have been arrested across the country among them dozens of protesters at the University of Texas at Austin on Monday.
Officials there said protesters had ignored directions to take down their tents and that “baseball-size rocks” had been found in the encampment.
The UN human rights Chief Volker Turk has voiced his concern that some law enforcement actions witnessed on American campuses have been “disproportionate in their impacts”.
“Freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly are fundamental to society,” he added in a statement.
At Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond, students said police used tear gas and pepper spray against their gathering on Monday.
The university said the group had been “repeatedly” asked to leave, and echoed other institutions by saying many of those involved in the demonstration were not students.
Elsewhere, there has been a rare agreement reached in Evanston, Illinois, between Northwestern University and protesters who have camped out for days in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Under the deal, the university said it would permit “peaceful demonstrations”, provided the encampment was limited to a single tent. Activists across the US are demanding that their universities, many with massive endowments, financially divest from Israel. Divestment means to sell or otherwise drop financial ties.
Pressure has been building on the leadership of Columbia, an elite Ivy League university in Upper Manhattan, to act, or step aside. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
