Unmistakable message. Student anger at incessant and brutal Israeli attacks on Palestinian Gaza turned instead on campus police after nine arrests at the University of Minnesota. In response, dozens more tents spawned at their “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on campus.
Protesters claim wholly peaceable; cops claim trespass
MINNEAPOLIS – Campus police arrested nine persons as a protest against Israeli excesses in its Gaza war was coming together outside the Coffman student union at the University of Mnnesota. Hauled to jail were seven students, one faculty member and a person whose campus connections were fuzzy. Pro-Palestinian flyers had summoned campus people the afternoon before to protest “the political repression of Palestine activists on campus.” By evening there were nine tents on the green space in front of Coffman. Organizers put up posters and went inline for inviting more studjtys to join ghem. By dawn there were 15 tents. Then campus police moved in. Estimates on police number ranged from 15 to 30. Sorcha Lona Lona, an organizer for Students for Democratic Society, said her protesters were peaceful, squatting in a circle with arms linked and chanting support of Palestine. One by one, Lona said, nine protesters were handcuffed. “Half of us still have marks from the handcuffs,” she told an interviewer after herself being booked by police and then released and returning to the encampment. Police, meanwhile, had dumped protester’s tents, water, textbooks and other belongings in the trash. Later, however, police stayed back as the encampment swelled with dozens of new tents and hundreds more protesters as the day progressed.
Verbatim
Scott Smith, A university alum and protestor, called the police presence overwhelming and disproportionate: “You can tell someone’s moral ineptitude when they call on such overwhelming force. It’s just wrong. These students are sending the right message at the right time.”
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Omar Ali, spokesperson for Students for Justice in Palestine, said police threatened students recording the raid: “We were recording from the outside and were told we would be arrested too.” He noted that campus police dumped student belongings in the trash: “Their priority was to clean up the encampment before anyone could see it.”
Trespass as issue
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University policy: “Rallies, demonstrations or other gatherings of a similar nature of fewer than 100 participants are allowed without a permit in specified outdoor spaces or immediately adjacent to these spaces and buildings.” The policy further states that permits are required to pitch a tent anywhere on university grounds.