Greek students are set to protest in solidarity with their US counterparts on Friday 26 April – as the situation in America intensifies.
US students: not having it
Ninety-three people were arrested Wednesday 24 April at the University of Southern California’s (USC’s) Los Angeles campus for “trespassing”, police said, after pro-Palestinian protests erupted across US campuses this week.
As USC, footage on social media showed cops being violent:
🇺🇸🔴 Alleged videos show chaos and arrests at the University of Southern California as student protestors continue to demonstrate in support of terrorist organization #Hamas and #Palestine, regurgitating antisemitic rhetoric and anti-#Israel slogans.#USC #UniversityProtests pic.twitter.com/4SDdsnZ5ML
— Off the Radar (@offoftheradar) April 25, 2024
Loads of campuses across the US were involved:
American universities and colleges involved in pro-Palestinian protests:
— Yale University
— University of Texas
— Columbia University
— Massachusetts Institute of Technology
—University of Minnesota
— University of California, Berkeley
— University of Pittsburgh
— University…— Emelia 🇸🇪 (@Bernadotte22) April 25, 2024
State troopers arrested students in Texas:
ALSO https://t.co/6pW6VWaJqn UT Austin: Horse-backed state troopers arrest ‘at least 50′ at University of Texas’ pro-Palestine protest after wild clashes as coast to coast campus chaos continues https://t.co/GX4wNFJfMV ~ Story Below #USA #News
— Follow @JodyField (@JodyField) April 25, 2024
USC said on X at around midnight that the protest had ended and the campus would remain “closed until further notice”:
Students, faculty, staff, and people with business on campus may enter with proper identification.
The pro-Palestinian demonstration at USC was among the latest to involve a confrontation between law enforcement and students angry at the mounting death toll in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It had killed over 34,000 people as of Thursday 25 April.
The protests began at Columbia University in New York. Cops made dozens of arrests last week after university authorities called in police to quell an occupation. Predictably, some Zionist students said the protest was threatening and antisemitic. Demonstrators, including a number of Jewish students, have disavowed instances of antisemitism.
On social media, uproar had been erupting over cops and national guards’ treatment of the young people:
Today, US cops & National Guard soldiers suppressed and beat students at several universities, including Columbia, USC, UT Austin, and Harvard.
The US government should stop this atrocity immediately!😡pic.twitter.com/Hmu4rEaoz0
— ShanghaiPanda (@thinking_panda) April 25, 2024
Authorities were even arresting journalists:
A photographer for FOX 7 in Austin was arrested during the protests at University of Texas Austin: pic.twitter.com/M1lU8riTc2
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) April 24, 2024
So, in Greece students are going to be protesting on 26 April in solidarity.
Greece: solidarity protests with US students
A statement by organisers was given to the Canary. It read:
The students of Athens we express our solidarity with the students of Columbia, Yale and dozens of other universities in the USA who are demonstrating against the massacre of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel. At the same time, we denounce the unacceptable repression of the students and the hundreds of arrests that the police have made.
Students are facing a modern-day witch hunt, facing persecution, the suspension of their student status by the supposedly ‘progressive’ Biden administration, which at the same time funds the occupying state of Israel with billions to continue the massacre.
These “values” are shared by both the so-called “progressives” in the US and the governments of the European Union (EU), including the New Democracy (ND) government in Greece, but also by the other parties that support the EU, which absolves the crimes of the murdering state of Israel by baptizing the genocide of the Palestinian people as a “right to self-defence”. On the responsibility of all of them, our country is actively involved in the wars and the slaughter of the Palestinian people, even sending frigates to the Middle East!
The developments in universities that are considered world-leading confirm that in the university-business the owners are in charge, who do not even hesitate to arrest students when they get in the way of their business. At Columbia, the University administration suspended (!!!) 2 Student Associations for holding events about Palestine, “repeatedly violating the rules of the Institution’s operation”. In October 2023 Harvard published the names and photos of students of the Institution who signed a petition condemning Israel and supporting Palestine!!!
Stop the genocide
It continued:
However, the youth and peoples of the whole world have proven that they are on the right side of history, they have consistently expressed their solidarity with the Palestinian people! It is this message sent by the peoples that frightens governments and all those who participate and/or support imperialist crimes! Justice is not silenced, no matter how much they try to suppress it!
We join our voice with the students in the US, who continue their struggle despite threats of expulsions and sanctions, who stand smiling and holding their heads high despite arrests. We are strengthening the struggle through our Student Unions against our country’s deepening involvement in wars and slaughter. We do NOT accept to pay HALF A MILLION EUROS a day for the frigate “Hydra” to sail to the Middle East to participate in the crimes!
Students all over the world, we are united against the imperialist plans – the genocide of the Palestinian people!
Because we know that “if you want to call yourself human, you will not stop fighting for justice for a single moment”.
We demand:
Stop now the arrests and repression against students in the US
Stop the involvement of our country in the wars and the massacre of the Palestinian people!
Stop the genocide of the Palestinian people!
Additional reporting via Agence France-Presse
Featured image via Guardian News – YouTube
