Pro-Palestinian Columbia students defy US university’s ultimatum

Students at New York’s Columbia University, the starting point of a pro-Palestinian student movement in the United States, occupied a building overnight Monday into Tuesday, defying an ultimatum to end their protest.

On Monday evening, Colombia began to sanction students who refused to leave the camp installed for ten days “other than by force”, reports the AFP agency, quoted by boursorama.com.

During the night, protesters barricaded themselves inside the Hamilton building and others surrounded it forming a human chain outside, according to a video posted on social media.

“Members of the Columbia community took control of Hamilton Hall just after midnight,” the Columbia University Apartheid Divest student group said in a statement. They renamed it “Hind’s Hall” after a six-year-old girl, Hind, killed during the Gaza war.

“Taking control of a building is a small risk compared to the daily resistance of Palestinians in Gaza,” the group added.

“We have begun (administratively) suspending students as part of this new measure to ensure the security of our campus,” Columbia Vice President for Communications Ben Chang told the media Monday night.

After a relatively calm weekend on campus, where a “village” of tents was set up, Columbia President Minouche Shafik issued an ultimatum on Monday that expires at 18:00 GMT. She urged the 200 occupants of one camp to leave after five days of negotiations for an amicable solution failed.

These pro-Palestinian students and activists, who are demanding that Columbia, a private university, sever all ties with patrons and companies linked to Israel, called for the camp to be “protected.”

“We will not be evicted, except by force,” shouted Sueda Polat, a student leader of the movement, at a press briefing. An AFP journalist counted about fifty people remaining in the small camp on Monday night, in a relaxed atmosphere and without the presence of the police.

Colombia had given assurances on Friday that it would not call the New York police to evacuate the tents.

But for Joseph Howley, a professor at Columbia, President Shafik’s ultimatum amounts to “giving in to external political pressure.”

The wave of protests against Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip has been spreading in American universities for ten days. The movement began at Columbia University, where a hundred people were arrested on April 18.

Since then, hundreds of other people – students, teachers and activists – have been questioned, sometimes arrested and prosecuted at several universities around the country.

Vietnam

Images of riot police entering campuses at the request of universities have gone around the world, recalling similar events in the United States during the Vietnam War.

The demonstrations reignited the tense debate since the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel over free speech, a constitutional right, and allegations of anti-Semitism.

This winter, the two presidents of Harvard and UPenn universities were forced to resign after being accused before Congress in Washington of not doing enough to combat anti-Semitism.

On the one hand, students and faculty accuse their universities of trying to censor free political expression, while on the other, a number of prominent figures, including elected Republicans, believe the activists are fueling the fire of anti-Semitism.

Some Jewish students joined the pro-Palestinian protests.

Over the weekend, more than 350 people were arrested at several universities across the country, and the Boston camp was disbanded.

At the University of Texas at Austin, a camp was also dismantled and several people were arrested. On Monday, police used pepper spray. “No encampment will be allowed,” conservative Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on social media.

At Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond (northeast), police pushed protesters out of the building, according to local television images. The students accused the police of using tear gas.

Management told X that it had repeatedly offered protesters, “many of whom were not students,” the opportunity to leave the premises and that “those who did not do so were arrested and are breaking the law.”

The Middle East war was sparked by Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israeli territory on October 7, which killed 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli data.

In retaliation, Israel has vowed to destroy the Islamist movement, and its massive military operation in the Gaza Strip has left 34,488 dead, mostly civilians, according to Hamas.