(New York) The New York police intervened manu militari Tuesday evening at Columbia University, the epicenter of the pro-Palestinian mobilization on American campuses, in order to dislodge the demonstrators who had barricaded themselves in a building since the previous night.
All the demonstrators were evacuated from the campus, according to American media.
American student anger has spread over the past two weeks from major universities on the East Coast to those in California, via the South and the Center, recalling the demonstrations against the Vietnam War at the end of the 1960s.
In New York Tuesday evening (around 9:30 p.m. [heure de l’Est] Wednesday), it was in riot gear, aided by an intervention vehicle with a ladder, that dozens, even hundreds of police officers, entered the campus.
Helmeted officers, climbing the ladder, then entered the occupied building through a window.
PHOTO KENA BETANCUR, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Dozens of people, some wearing keffiyehs, were arrested and placed in police buses, AFP noted. Outside the campus, crowds shouted “Free Palestine!” “.
“Last night’s events on campus gave us no choice,” wrote university president Minouche Shafik in a public letter asking the New York Police Department to intervene on the campus perimeter. this private establishment in Manhattan.
PHOTO CRAIG RUTTLE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dozens of people, some wearing keffiyehs, were arrested and placed in police buses.
Until May 17
For two weeks, she and many other university leaders across the country have faced protesters, sometimes just a few dozen, who have occupied their campuses to oppose Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas.
In his letter to the New York police, Mr.me Shafik asks law enforcement to “maintain a presence on campus at least until May 17, in order to maintain order and ensure that no encampments are established.” »
During the night from Monday to Tuesday, a few dozen protesters barricaded themselves in a building, Hamilton Hall. The building was renamed “Hind’s Hall” by the pro-Palestinian group Columbia University Apartheid Divest, in tribute to a six-year-old girl killed in Gaza.
PHOTO CAITLIN OCHS, REUTERS
The Columbia University Apartheid Divest group renamed the building, Hamilton Hall, to “Hind’s Hall” in honor of a six-year-old girl killed during the Gaza war.
On their Instagram account, this group denounced an “invasion” of the campus.
The Columbia presidency began on Monday to administratively “suspend” students who refused to leave the tent “village”.
” Chaos ”
Six months before the presidential election in a polarized country, this student movement has provoked a strong reaction from the political world.
Joe Biden “must do something” against these “paid agitators,” Republican candidate Donald Trump said Tuesday evening on Fox News. “We must put an end to the anti-Semitism that plagues our country today,” he added.
“While Columbia University is plunged into chaos, Joe Biden is absent because he is afraid to tackle the subject,” Republican leader of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson wrote on X in the evening. It has long called for the departure of its president, Minouche Shafik.
PHOTO MARIAM ZUHAIB, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Minouche Shafik, president of Columbia University
“Occupying a university building by force is the wrong approach” and does not represent “an example of peaceful demonstration,” John Kirby, spokesperson for Democratic President Joe Biden’s National Security Council, thundered before the police intervention. .
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators are demanding that their universities cut ties with patrons or companies linked to Israel.
Columbia refuses.
But another elite Northeast campus, Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, announced a deal with students: dismantling the encampment in exchange for a university vote in October on possible “corporate divestitures.” who enable and profit from the genocide in Gaza.”
PHOTO BING GUAN, THE NEW YORK TIMES
” Restore order ”
Across the United States, images of law enforcement in riot gear brutally intervening on campuses have gone around the world. Since last weekend, hundreds of students, teachers and activists from around twenty universities have been arrested, some arrested and placed in detention.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a group of students claimed responsibility for raising a Palestinian flag in the center of campus, before police put up the US colors again, according to press reports.
These new pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the United States have reignited the electric debate since October between freedom of expression and accusations of anti-Semitism.
The country has the largest number of Jews in the world after Israel, and millions of Arab-Muslim Americans.
The war in the Gaza Strip was triggered by the unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7 on Israeli soil which led to the massacre of 1,170 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP report based on official data. Israelis. In retaliation, Israel promised to destroy the Palestinian Islamist movement and its vast military operation in Gaza left 34,535 people dead, mostly civilians, according to Hamas.