Unfazed by Thursday’s mass arrests, protesters at Columbia College returned to the campus’ garden space on Friday morning to proceed their anti-Israel protest and say they are going to “hold this line” till their calls for are met.
Video reveals dozens of individuals, many donning black-and-white keffiyeh headscarves and COVID-19 masks, planted down on sheets and sleeping luggage on a garden adjoining to the place yesterday’s fiery protests occurred.
A big banner with the phrases “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” marked their territory and a number of other Palestinian flags had been flying all through their occupied zone.
The temper was so much quieter than Thursday and piles of meals and drinks might be seen within the heart of the encampment, indicating the protesters had been there for the lengthy haul. Not like yesterday, there aren’t any tents and people concerned say on social media they have been informed they’ll stay on the garden so long as no tents are pitched.
College students at Columbia College returned to the campus’ garden space on Friday morning to proceed their anti-Israel protest and say they are going to “hold this line” till their calls for are met.
“Your organizers are returning, I ask you to please hold this line and to continue to bring people out in support of Palestine to get our demands,” one protestor holding a Dunkin’ Donuts cup railed right into a bullhorn.
“The more they try to silence us the louder we will be,” he started chanting, as others joined in. He then broke right into a commerce union-inspired tune known as “Rich Man’s House,” singing: “So I went down the rich man’s house and I stole what he took with me.”
ANTI-ISRAEL AGITATORS OCCUPY COLUMBIA CAMPUS AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT FACES GRILLING FROM CONGRESS
Professional-Palestine protestors exhibit outdoors of Columbia College’s campus in New York Metropolis on Thursday, April 18, 2024. A number of college students had been arrested as officers cleared an encampment on the campus’ garden. (Peter Gerber for Fox Information Digital)
The demonstrators say they’re protesting Columbia College’s continued “financial investment in corporations that profit from Israel apartheid, genocide, and occupation in Palestine.”
They’re calling for the college to make public all of its monetary investments, no additional arrests and the dropping of expenses for all college students disciplined for his or her involvement within the protests.
In whole, 108 individuals had been arrested and given a summons for trespassing, the New York Police Division (NYPD) mentioned throughout a Thursday press convention, together with the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. Two individuals had been moreover given a summons for obstruction of governmental administration.
“While the encampment has been dismantled, our community has had protest activity on campus since October, and we expect that activity to continue,” a Columbia College spokesperson tells Fox Information. “We have rules regarding the time, place, and manner that apply to protest activity and we will continue to enforce those. We remain in regular contact with our students and student groups and are committed to ensuring the core functions of the University continue.”
College students at Columbia College returned to the campus’ garden space on Friday morning to proceed their anti-Israel protest and say they are going to “hold this line” till their calls for are met. (FNTV)
The NYPD was invited to the college by college President Minouche Shafik on Thursday. Earlier within the day, Shafik despatched a message to the scholar physique, saying that these “extraordinary steps” had been crucial “because these are extraordinary circumstances” and that the protesters had “violated a long list of rules and policies.”
The police operation was the primary mass arrests to be made on the Columbia campus since 1968, when lots of of scholars occupied Hamilton Corridor in protest of the Vietnam Warfare and the deliberate building of a gymnasium in Morningside Park had been detained, the Columbia Spector reported.
Like many Ivy League faculty campuses, Columbia College has seen quite a few pro-Palestinian protests sprout since Oct. 7. The demonstrations have gotten extra intense as Israel continues to conduct its army offensive within the Gaza Strip in opposition to Hamas.
Fox Information’ CB Cotton, Stephen Sorace and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
