NEW YORK.- Dozens of protesters occupied a Columbia University building in New York early Tuesday, placing barricades at the entrances and hanging a Palestinian flag in a window, in a new escalation of the protests against the war between Israel and Hamas that have been spread to college campuses across the United States.
Video footage showed young protesters on Columbia’s Manhattan campus with arms linked outside Hamilton Hall early Tuesday and carrying furniture and metal barricades into the building, one of those occupied during a civil rights protest. and against the Vietnam War in 1968. Posts on an Instagram account by protest organizers shortly after midnight urged people to protect the camp and join them at Hamilton Hall. A sign reading “Free Palestine” hung from a window.
Student radio station WKCR-FM covered step by step the takeover of the building, which occurred about 12 hours after the 2 p.m. Monday deadline for protesters to abandon a camp of about 120 tents under threat of suspension.
Suspension
Columbia University began suspending students students who defied the ultimatum given this Monday by the center’s authorities to end the camp at the prestigious institution.
At night, students They occupied a building on the campus of this New York university and barricaded themselves inside, while others made a human chain outside, according to images from a video on social networks.
“Members of the Columbia community retook Hamilton Hall after midnight,” the group said. students Columbia University Apartheid Divest in a statement.
University authorities indicated in a statement that only students staying in residences and essential services personnel such as catering, public security and maintenance could access the Morningside campus. There would only be one point of access and exit from the premises.
“The safety of each and every member of this community is paramount,” the statement added.
In their post on
Anti-Semitic signs
In Columbia, a little beyond the compound that houses the tents, dozens of small Israeli flags waved on the grass and photos of the hostages who remain in the hands of the Palestinian group Hamas without anyone seeming to care.
“For many of our students Jews and for others as well, the atmosphere has become intolerable in recent weeks. “Many have left the campus and that is a tragedy,” said the Columbia president.
“Anti-Semitic language and acts are unacceptable and calls for violence are simply abhorrent,” he said before recalling that the “right of one group to express their opinions cannot be detrimental to the right of another group to speak, teach and learn”.
Replicas of the protests
Universities across the United States were trying to find a way to clear the camps before impending graduation ceremonies. Some remained in negotiations while others resorted to force and ultimatums, which have led to clashes with the police. Dozens of people were arrested Monday in protests at universities in Texas, Utah, Virginia and New Jersey, while Columbia said a few hours before the Hamilton building was occupied that it had begun suspending students.
For their part, police intervened Tuesday morning to dismantle an encampment at Yale University in Connecticut, although there were no immediate reports of arrests.
The Yale Daily News, an independent student newspaper, reported that Yale and New Haven police had surrounded the encampment on the campus esplanade with tape starting at 6 a.m., and said that anyone inside the perimeter could be arrested and suspended if he did not quit. As of 7:30 a.m., no arrests had been made, said Officer Christian Bruckhart, a New Haven police spokesman.
Protests on campuses across the country began following Israel’s response to deadly attacks launched by Hamas against the south of the country on October 7.
The militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas.
Source: With information from AP/AFP
