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Parents and guardians of NYU students slam university president in open letter
Almost 600 “parents, guardians and loved ones” of students at NYU have criticised president Linda Mills’s response to the student-led pro-Palestine demonstrations, as universities across the US step up rallies protesting Israel’s assault on Gaza.
In an open letter addressed to Mills, parents and guardians said they are “concerned and disturbed” at the reaction of the university to the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment”.
“Our number one priority is the safety of our children and their freedom of expression,” the letter read. “The lies you are pushing infuriate and deeply alarm us,” the letter added, referring to an email reportedly sent by Mills. The email is “a betrayal of trust and a blatant attempt to deflect accountability for the university’s violent and horrific actions,” the parents said.
More than 100 protesters, including students and faculty members, were arrested by police at the encampment last week. “We have not been offered any proof of an incident of intimidation, unsafe behavior, or antisemitism that you touted to justify the brutalization of our students,” the parents said in their joint letter.
“It was Linda Mills and NYU, who authorised riot police to arrest our students, that created a dangerous and violent situation,” they added, describing the arrests as brutal and disproportionate.
Arrests of protesters ‘ongoing’ at University of Texas
Hundreds of Texas state troopers have arrested students protesting against Israel’s assault on Gaza at the University of Texas in Austin in the US.
Demonstrators have been told to leave by the university, but they have defied orders to do so. Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro, reporting from the scene, said arrests are “continuing and ongoing”. “Now, the sheriff’s department has showed up with a large bus that they are filling now with arrested protesters,” she said.
Within the encampment, protesters are sitting “with their arms linked, in defiance of the call from the university to disperse”, Zhou-Castro said, adding that people at the scene said there is an “overly heavy police response”.
According to Zhou-Castro said, there was “no sort of violence, no sort of anti-Semitic chanting, leading up to this police response”.
UPDATE: dozens of state troopers have just arrived to @UTAustin. pic.twitter.com/er2uq1rcLy
— Lily Kepner (@lilykepner) April 29, 2024
‘We will not be silenced’, says University of Texas student protester
Hadi, a student and one of the protesters at the University of Texas in Austin in the United States, says the school is trying to “censor us”.
“We are seeing the illusion of American freedom, the illusion of American freedom of speech, crumbling behind us,” Hadi told Al Jazeera from the scene of the university encampment, where police are arresting dozens of students.
“The system and this university have decided to showcase that they would rather subjugate, oppress and silence students than allow us to have a peaceful demonstration where we hope to educate each other,” he said. “We will not be silenced.”
Students are calling for an end to Israel’s assault on Gaza and for the university to divest and stop all funding and investments tied to Israel.
Seattle students join protests, pitch tents
Pro-Palestine protesters pitched a handful of tents on the University of Washington campus in Seattle, joining other universities across the US in denouncing Israel’s war on Gaza.
According to the Reuters news agency, approximately two dozens students pitched tents on the quad, next to “no camping” signs that appeared over the weekend.
A few pro-Israel protesters stopped by and filmed while tents were being erected, but no altercations occurred.
