2 weeks ago
Last Updated: May 02, 2024, 14:33 IST
Los Angeles, United States of America (USA)
Police stage on the UCLA campus near an encampment set up by pro-Palestinian demonstrators Wednesday, May 1, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo)
Pro-Palestinian protests at UCLA campus escalate, leading to a standoff with police. Similar demonstrations erupt nationwide, prompting arrests and scrutiny
Hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators stayed on the UCLA campus despite police telling them to go. Officers were ready to clear their fortified area on Wednesday, surrounded by a larger crowd of supporters and curious bystanders.
Los Angeles police arrived and buses were on standby to remove protesters who didn’t leave. The chaotic scenes at UCLA came just hours after New York police burst into a building occupied by anti-war protesters at Columbia University on Tuesday night, breaking up a demonstration that had paralyzed the school.
BREAKING;Ziønists are attacking students at UCLA
I wonder if the police will do anything
Or is there a two-tiered policing system with a certain group above the rest of us? pic.twitter.com/WAMTauWaV1
— ADAM (@AdameMedia) May 1, 2024
READ MORE: WATCH | After New York Clashes, Pro-Palestinian Unrest At California University
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement that “a group of instigators” perpetrated the previous night’s attack. “However one feels about the encampment, this attack on our students, faculty and community members was utterly unacceptable,” he said. “It has shaken our campus to its core.” Block promised a review of the night’s events after California Gov. Gavin Newsom denounced the delays.
The head of the University of California system, Michael Drake, ordered an “independent review of the university’s planning, its actions and the response by law enforcement.” “The community needs to feel the police are protecting them, not enabling others to harm them,” Rebecca Husaini, chief of staff for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said in a news conference on the Los Angeles campus later Wednesday, where some Muslim students detailed the overnight events.
Tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread across campuses nationwide in a student movement unlike any other this century. The ensuing police crackdowns echoed actions decades ago against a much larger protest movement protesting the Vietnam War.
The nationwide campus demonstrations began at Columbia on April 17 to protest Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which followed Hamas launching a deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. Militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to stamp out Hamas, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there.
Israel and its supporters have branded the university protests antisemitic, while Israel’s critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organizers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war.
Meanwhile, protest encampments elsewhere were cleared by the police, resulting in arrests, or closed up voluntarily at schools across the U.S., including The City College of New York, Fordham University in New York, Portland State in Oregon, Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona and Tulane University in New Orleans.
(With agency inputs)
