40 arrested at university antiwar protest in Denver, Colorado
Police wearing riot gear arrested dozens of antiwar protesters at a university protest in Denver, Colorado, on Friday, Colorado Newsline reported.
A statement from the Auraria Gaza Solidarity Encampment called on the University of Colorado to divest from companies operating in Israel and to issue a “statement condemning the genocidal actions of Israel”.
Campus security and Denver police reported that approximately 40 people were arrested at Auraria Campus, the combined site of three colleges.
Emory University faculty stands between student protesters and police
Palestinian American politician Ruwa Romman, the first Muslim woman to be elected to the Georgia State House of Representatives, said it was “incredibly moving” to see faculty members at Georgia’s Emory University place themselves between police and students protesting for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza.
“But it never should’ve been necessary,” Romman wrote on social media, above images of the protesting students who linked arms around a flagpole on the university’s campus as police prepared to move in on Friday night.
Almost 30 people were arrested on the campus on Thursday according to reports, including university professor Noelle McAfee, chair of the Emory Philosophy Department.
Columbia bans student over social media video comments
Columbia student Khymani James has been banned from campus and faces disciplinary action for saying in a social media video that “Zionists don’t deserve to live,” a spokesperson of the university has said.
James, a self-identified spokesperson for the student encampment at Columbia, apologised for the video which was taken in January. “What I said was wrong,” he said in a statement. “Every member of our community deserves to feel safe without qualification.”
Pro-Palestine protesters at Columbia publish list of demands
The students at Columbia have released their five demands from the university, including the institution to divest from companies that aid the Israeli government, sever ties to Israeli universities and stop the policing of “Palestinian students and allies on and off campus”.
They also call on the university to release a public statement calling for an “immediate, permanent ceasefire” in Gaza.
The protesters also demand that Columbia stop the displacement of residents in Harlem, a borough in New York, through expanding campuses without local community control.
Students continue to maintain a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at Columbia University, in New York City, US, Friday, April 26
From Los Angeles to New York, Gaza protests grow in the US
Students at US universities protesting against Israel’s war on Gaza have pledged to continue occupying school grounds despite growing efforts by university leaders and police to clear the demonstrations.
As the protests that began at Columbia University in New York spread outside the United States, demonstrators nationwide are demanding that schools slash financial ties to Israel and divest from companies they say are enabling Israel’s nearly seven-month war on Gaza that has killed at least 34,388 people and 77,437 others.
Pro-Palestinian students protest at an encampment on the campus of the University of California Los Angeles, or UCLA
