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26-04-2024
NEW YORK: Police have arrested hundreds more protesters in locations across the US, as protests against the war in Gaza intensify across university campuses.
Some 108 arrests were made at Emerson College, Boston police told media.
Earlier, 93 people at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles were taken into custody on trespassing charges.
Protesters and police also clashed at the University of Texas in Austin.
Authorities said 34 people were arrested there too.
Universities across the US have seen a growing number of students walk out of class or try to set up encampments to protest against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The latest arrests follow others at Columbia, Yale, Brown and New York University.
At LA’s USC, arrests were made as students gathered in Alumni Park – where the university’s main-stage graduation ceremony is scheduled to take place next month.
Police officers in riot gear cleared a pro-Palestinian encampment at the centre of the campus, preventing demonstrators from gathering.
Students received a 10-minute warning from police helicopters to disperse. Those who refused were arrested on trespassing charges.
Kelly Munz of the Los Angeles Police Department told journalists that officers were in the area and arrived to assist the university when protesters refused to leave.
“The university is a private campus and the group had been violating the order, it was a trespass at that point,” Munz said.
On its social media channel, USC said the protest had now ended but the campus remained closed until further notice, adding: “students with USC IDs will have access through pedestrian gates and everyone who is on campus will be able to leave.”
The protest was reported to have been largely peaceful at first, but then turned tense with the continued police presence.
Videos online showed protesters throwing water bottles at the police when they tried to detain one woman, chanting, “Let her go!”
Other protesters gathered around the officers, drowning out their warnings with “free Palestine” chants. Students, some wearing kaffiyehs were holding “liberated zone” signs, banging drums.
Elsewhere in the country, Boston police told CBS that three officers had been injured in the action at Emerson College, one of them seriously, though their condition was not life-threatening. No protesters were hurt, police added.
Students are said to have been camping out since Sunday, allegedly ignoring warnings to leave.
Emerson College has not yet commented on the arrests. In a previous statement, it said it supported the right to peaceful protests while urging activists to comply with the law.
Meanwhile at Harvard University, students braved the cold to set up more than 30 tents in front of the John Harvard statue in Harvard Yard, the oldest part of the university, on Wednesday night. They remained there on Thursday.
Earlier, there were chaotic scenes on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin as hundreds of local and state police on horseback, holding batons, dispersed protesters. Governor Greg Abbott deployed the National Guard to stop the demonstrators from marching through campus, saying, they “belong in jail”.
Social media footage shows officers pushing into the crowd, while warning demonstrators on loudspeakers to leave the premises or face arrest.
“I command you in the name of the people of the state of Texas to disperse,” the announcement said. Thirty-four people were arrested, officials said. (Int’l News Desk)
