Police raid Columbia to violently arrest pro-Palestine protestors

Pro-Palestine protests continue at Columbia, New York, more than a week after students set up an encampment on campus, leading to more than 100 arrests and multiple suspensions. The demonstrations spread to the university’s Hamilton Hall on Tuesday (April 30), where students barricaded the entrance and draped a Palestinian flag out of a window. On Tuesday night, however, hundreds of New York City police officers stormed the building through a second-floor window to make dozens more arrests. Members of a human chain outside the building were also arrested.

According to reports by CNN and the Financial Times, the NYPD officers – many wearing riot gear – breached Hamilton Hall using flash-bang grenades and pepper spray, and allegedly threw one protester down the stairs. Others were reportedly “brutalised” during their arrests.

Activists had apparently blockaded doors with chairs, tables, and vending machines. Video from the start of the occupation shows students linking arms and carrying furniture into the building. They said that they planned to remain in the hall until the university agreed to three primary demands made by the student group coalition Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD): divestment from the state of Israel, financial transparency, and amnesty.

The last time that mass arrests took place on the Columbia campus – before the clearing of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment last month – was in 1968, in response to protests against the violence enacted during the Vietnam War. Sweda Polat, one of the student negotiators for CUAD, argues that today’s protestors will be similarly vindicated, saying: “Columbia will be proud of these students in five years.”

Columbia has asked the NYPD to remain on campus until May 17, two days after its graduation ceremony. Across the rest of the US, students at other universities are also making their voices name, inspired by the Columbia protests, with violent clashes recently breaking out between pro-Palestine demonstrations and counter-protesters at UCLA. 

Read more about the nationwide protests, from the perspectives of those taking part, here. For more context, click here to read about historic instances where student protesters were on the right side of history.