NEW DELHI: The White House on Sunday emphasized that pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have swept across US universities in recent weeks must remain non-violent, following the arrest of approximately 275 individuals on four different campuses over the weekend.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, speaking on ABC’s This Week, said, “We certainly respect the right of peaceful protests.” However, he also added, “We absolutely condemn the anti-Semitism language that we’ve heard of late and certainly condemn all the hate speech and the threats of violence out there.”
The protests, which originated at Columbia University in New York, have quickly spread to other universities nationwide.Although many campuses have remained peaceful, the number of protesters arrested by police, sometimes in riot gear using chemical irritants and tasers, is increasing rapidly. The arrests include 100 at Northeastern University in Boston, 80 at Washington University in St Louis, 72 at Arizona State University, and 23 at Indiana University.
Among those arrested at Washington University was Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who criticized the police for their aggressive tactics, which she claimed provoked the very disturbances they were intended to prevent. “This is about freedom of speech on a very critical issue,” she told CNN shortly before her arrest on Saturday. “And there they are, sending in the riot police and basically creating a riot,” she added.
University administrators have faced challenges in finding the most appropriate response, balancing the need to respect free speech rights with the necessity of containing inflammatory and sometimes violently anti-Semitic rhetoric from protesters. The University of Southern California closed its main campus to the public late Saturday after pro-Palestinian groups re-established an encampment that had been previously cleared, as announced by the school on X.
With final exams approaching in the coming weeks, some universities, such as the Humboldt campus of California State Polytechnic University, have closed and directed students to complete their coursework online.
The activists organizing the campus protests, not all of whom are students, are demanding a ceasefire in Israel’s conflict with Hamas and urging colleges to cut ties with Israel.
Source link