Dozens of Pro-Palestinian Protesters Arrested by NYPD at Columbia University Campus
New York City police have apprehended dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators from Columbia University’s upper Manhattan campus. Amid chants of ‘shame on you,’ handcuffed protesters were escorted out and placed onto buses, almost 24 hours after they initially occupied an academic building. The situation has since calmed, with students who were previously stranded outside during the confrontation now returning to campus.
Police have confirmed the clearance of protesters from the campus, which includes dismantling a nearly two-week-old tent camp on the university’s lawns. NYPD officers entered the occupied Hamilton Hall on Tuesday night through a second-story window, employing ladders for access. Columbia authorized the intervention after demonstrators failed to comply with a dispersal deadline. The university stated, “After the hall was ‘occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice.”
Across US campuses, protests have surged as students advocate for a boycott of entities and individuals with ties to Israel amid the conflict in Gaza. President Biden emphasised the importance of peaceful demonstrations, condemning the forcible takeover of buildings as inappropriate.
editor
We are witnessing the suppression of the FREEDOM of Expression in the USA as police forces are resorting to heavy handed and in some cases illegal use of force and their statuary powers to silence the growing protests against the Biden administrations support of Israel with $Billions of US weapons and aid which is being used against the Gaza & West Bank civilians in Palestine, the university student protests are spreading rapidly across all american states, the latest display of over reaction in New York is more likely to inflame rather than calm the situation, which history has proved is not solved by violent and heavy handed treatment of protesters.