Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Year : 2, Issue : 18
Demonstrators at Columbia University barricaded themselves inside a campus building early Tuesday, escalating a standoff with school officials as pro-Palestinian protests upend campuses across the United States.
The occupation of Hamilton Hall at the prestigious university in New York came hours after administrators said they had begun suspending students for failing to comply with an order to disperse.
Masked individuals smashed windows and moved metal tables to block the building’s entrances, images shared overnight on social media showed.
“After 206 days of genocide and over 34,000 Palestinian martyrs, Columbia community members took back Hamilton Hall just after midnight,” the group said in a statement citing Israel’s war in Gaza.
It said the group had renamed the building “Hind’s Hall” in honor of a six-year-old Gazan girl killed by Israel during its ongoing offensive against Hamas.
The demonstrators vowed to remain at the hall until their demands are met, including that Columbia divest all financial holdings linked to Israel.
Protests have swept through higher education institutions from coast to coast, with many erecting tent encampments on campus grounds, after around 100 protesters were first arrested at Columbia on April 18.
TV footage showed police at the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond on Monday evening pushing and shoving away protesters, with students saying teargas and pepper spray was deployed.
Source: AFP
