Biden condemns unrest following Gaza protests after police storm campuses: ‘Violent protest is not protected’
President Biden on Thursday condemned the unrest and violence that has disrupted college campuses over the last week while stressing the importance of Americans’ right to protest peacefully in support of the Palestinian people’s treatment during Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.
Mr Biden, speaking from the East Room of the White House, said peaceful protest is “in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues” because the US is “not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent”.
He said the images of police clashing with protesters put the “fundamental American principles” of free speech and the rule of law “to the test” as he pointed out the importance of maintaining the latter to allow the former.
“Peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues, but neither are we a lawless country. We’re a civil society, and order must prevail,” he said.
Mr Biden also condemned actors who are using the campus unrest and protests to “score political points” and called the protests “a moment for clarity”.
“Let me be clear … violent protest is not protected, peaceful protest is,” he said.
“Destroying property is not a peaceful protest — i’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations. None of this is a peaceful protest, threatening people, intimidating people, instilling fear in people is not peaceful protest. It’s against the law”.
The president also stressed that while dissent remains “essential to democracy,” it “must never lead to disorder or denying the rights of others”.
“It’s basically a matter of fairness. It’s a matter of what’s right. There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos. People have the right to get an education, the right to get a degree, the right to walk across the campus safely without fear of being attacked,” he said.
Mr Biden’s remarks came just hours after police in Los Angeles were met with hurled projectiles while clearing an encampment on the UCLA campus.
Officers muscled their way into a central plaza of the university on Wednesday evening before forcing their way into the anti-war encampment at around 3:15am, tearing down barricades and arresting occupants who refused to leave.
Live TV footage showed about six protesters under arrest, kneeling on the ground, their hands bound behind their backs with zip-ties as dozens of loud explosions were heard during the clash from flash-bang charges, or stun grenades, fired by police.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement that “a group of instigators” perpetrated the previous night’s attack, but he did not provide details about the crowd or why the administration and school police did not act sooner.
That clash between protesters and police in California occurred less than a day after New York Police Department officers forcibly removed protesters from the Columbia University administration building in a scene which came nearly 56 years to the day that police had also cleared a similar occupation by students angry over the Vietnam War.
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