The United Nations (UN) has expressed concerns at the police treatment of pro-Palestine protestors at the Columbia University in New York.
Dozens of protesters took over a building at Columbia University early Tuesday, barricading entrances and unfurling a Palestinian flag from a window in the latest escalation of demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war on college campuses nationwide, the Voice of America reported.
The occupation at Columbia, where protesters had shrugged off an earlier ultimatum to abandon a tent encampment on Monday or be suspended, unfolded as other universities stepped up efforts to clear out encampments.
Police swept through some campuses, spurring confrontations with protesters and plenty of arrests. In rarer instances, university officials and protest leaders have struck agreements to restrict the disruption to campus life.
Protesters on Columbia’s Manhattan campus locked arms in front of Hamilton Hall early Tuesday and carried furniture and metal barricades to the building, among several that were occupied during a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protest.
Posts on an Instagram for protest organisers shortly after midnight urged people to protect the encampment and join them at Hamilton Hall. A “Free Palestine” banner hung from a window.
The office of UN human rights chief Volker Türk, meanwhile, expressed concern about “heavy-handed steps” taken to dismantle protests on US campuses, while stressing that antisemitic, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian comments were “totally unacceptable and deeply disturbing.”
Dozens of people were arrested during protests at universities in Texas, Utah, Virginia and New Jersey, while Columbia said hours before the takeover of Hamilton Hall that it had started suspending students.
At the University of Texas at Austin, 79 people involved in Monday’s protest were jailed, according to the Travis County sheriff’s department, most charged with criminal trespass.
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