{"id":27049,"date":"2024-05-10T04:31:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-10T09:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=27049"},"modified":"2024-05-10T04:31:06","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T09:31:06","slug":"police-clear-pro-palestinian-protest-camp-and-arrest-33-at-dc-campus-as-mayors-hearing-is-canceled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=27049","title":{"rendered":"Police clear pro-Palestinian protest camp and arrest 33 at DC campus as mayor\u2019s hearing is canceled"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Police used pepper spray to clear a pro-Palestinian tent encampment<\/u><\/a> at George Washington University and arrested dozens of demonstrators on Wednesday just as city officials were set to appear before hostile lawmakers in Congress to account for their handling of the 2-week-old protest<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability canceled the hearing after the crackdown, with its chairman and other Republicans welcoming the police action. House Speaker Mike Johnson said, \u201cit should not require threatening to haul D.C.\u2019s mayor before Congress to keep Jewish students at George Washington University safe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said she and Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith decided to clear the camp because of signs that \u201cthe protest was becoming more volatile and less stable.\u201d Among them were indications that protesters had \u201cgathered improvised weapons\u201d and were \u201ccasing\u201d university buildings with the possible intention of occupying them, police said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>But Moataz Salim, a Palestinian student at George Washington who has family in Gaza, said the authorities merely \u201cdestroyed a beautiful community space that was all about love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>\u201cLess than 10 hours ago, I was pepper sprayed and assaulted by police,\u201d he told a news conference held by organizers. \u201cAnd why? Because we decided to pitch some tents, hold community activities and learn from each other. We built something incredible. We built something game-changing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tensions have ratcheted up in standoffs with protesters of the Israel-Hamas war<\/u><\/a> on campuses across the United States and increasingly in Europe<\/u><\/a>. Some colleges cracked down immediately. Others have tolerated the demonstrations. Some have begun to lose patience and call in the police over concerns about disruptions to campus life and safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police also moved in Tuesday night to break up an encampment at the University of Massachusetts. Video from the scene in Amherst showed an hourslong operation as dozens of officers in riot gear systematically tore down tents and took protesters into custody. The operation continued into early Wednesday. Police said about 130 people were arrested after protesters refused orders to disperse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI found it to be a complete overreaction,\u201d said Lucas Ruud, editor-in-chief of The Massachusetts Daily Collegian. \u201cIt was a completely unnecessary show of force.\u201d The staff of the college newspaper counted more than 100 police vehicles on campus for the crackdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>In Washington, police said they arrested 33 people at the George Washington protest, including for assault on a police officer and unlawful entry. They confirmed they used pepper spray outside the encampment against protesters who were trying to break police lines and enter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two Democratic lawmakers appeared at a news conference with five of the students who had been arrested. \u201cI want all Republicans and Democrats to know that they cannot arrest their way out of this growing dissent,\u201d said Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. \u201cThis was an explicit attempt to repress students exercising their First Amendment rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri said that \u201cthose who refuse to stop the genocide in Gaza think they can arrest and brutalize their way out of this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school said in a statement that while it is committed to free expression, \u201cthe encampment had evolved into an unlawful activity, with participants in direct violation of multiple university policies and city regulations.\u201d It said later that normal operations had resumed after the \u201corderly and safe operation\u201d to disperse the demonstrators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Joe Biden\u2019s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said the president believes the right to dissent is \u201cfundamental to who we are, but it cannot lead to disorder and violence, threats, vandalism, trespassing and\/or shutting down campuses. Students have the right to be safe, and antisemitism is repugnant, and we\u2019ve been very clear about that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the roughly two weeks of the encampment, the scene had been largely tranquil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tightly organized demonstrators and pro-Israeli counterprotesters who stood along the edges interacted without serious conflict. Some of the most charged confrontations involved people objecting to the treatment of a George Washington statue, wrapped with Palestinian scarves and flags with \u201cGenocidal Warmonger University\u201d spray-painted on its base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since April 18, about 2,800 people have been arrested on 50 campuses \u2014 figures based on Associated Press reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies after this latest anti-war movement was launched by a protest at Columbia University<\/u><\/a> in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At other U.S. schools:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Student protesters at the University of Vermont ended their nine-day encampment Wednesday. Among their demands, protesters wanted the school to cancel Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, as commencement speaker because of U.S. votes blocking cease-fire resolutions. The school said Friday that Thomas-Greenfield would not give the address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 A pro-Palestinian tent encampment was cleared by officers in riot gear<\/u><\/a> at the University of Chicago on Tuesday after administrators who initially adopted a permissive approach said the protesters had crossed a line. Hundreds of protesters had gathered for at least eight days until administrators warned them Friday to leave or face removal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 The president of Wesleyan University, a liberal arts school in Connecticut, commended the on-campus demonstration, which includes a pro-Palestinian tent encampment, as an act of political expression. The camp there has grown from about 20 tents a week ago to more than 100. \u201cThe protesters\u2019 cause is important \u2014 bringing attention to the killing of innocent people,\u201d university President Michael Roth wrote to the campus community. \u201cAnd we continue to make space for them to do so, as long as that space is not disruptive to campus operations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 The Rhode Island School of Design\u2019s president, Crystal Williams, spent more than five hours with protesters discussing their demands after students started occupying a building Monday. On Tuesday the school announced it was relocating classes from the building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 New York City police arrested 50 people outside the Fashion Institute of Technology on Tuesday evening after protesters who had been rallying nearby arrived to support a student encampment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Amherst, school Chancellor Javier Reyes said he ordered the sweep after talks over a wide range of demands failed to yield an agreement to dismantle the encampment and engage in \u201cconstructive discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A week ago, the George Washington encampment was host to a somewhat chaotic visit from several Republican members of the House oversight panel who criticized the protests and condemned Bowser\u2019s refusal at that point to send in police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe did not have any violence to interrupt on the GW campus,\u201d she said then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the early hours of Wednesday, hundreds of Metropolitan Police Department officers descended on the scene, reported The GW Hatchet, the university\u2019s student newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least two officers deployed pepper spray on protesters, who then set up an impromptu medical area at a nearby market, the paper said. Organizers ran to a convenience store to buy water to rinse their eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The oversight hearing, now scrapped, was another pressure point in the fraught relationship between Republicans in Congress and officials in the heavily Democratic district. Former President Donald Trump has threatened a federal \u201ctakeover\u201d of the city, to control crime, if he wins back the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The district is already a federal enclave, though with a measure of self-government and its own police department, over which the federal government can exert control in some emergencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Police used pepper spray to clear a pro-Palestinian tent encampment at George Washington University and arrested dozens of demonstrators on Wednesday just as city officials were set to appear before hostile lawmakers in Congress to account for their handling of the 2-week-old protest. The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability canceled the hearing after the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":27050,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[2450,23259,1237,24165,28305,1227],"class_list":["post-27049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-arrest","tag-campus","tag-police","tag-pro-palestinian","tag-protest-camp","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27051,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27049\/revisions\/27051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}