New York Police Arrest Dozens of Pro-Palestinian Protesters at Columbia University
New York City police arrested around 80 pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University on Wednesday evening after demonstrators occupied a campus library to protest the university’s ties to Israel.
Approximately 80 protesters were detained after Columbia University administrators called in the New York Police Department to clear the Butler Library, which had been occupied by activists for several hours, according to local radio station 1010 WINS.
The protesters issued a statement online declaring, “We will not be useless intellectuals. Palestine is our compass, and we stand strong in the face of violent oppression.”
Claire Shipman, Columbia’s acting president, condemned the protest as “completely unacceptable” and said she requested police intervention after demonstrators stood on tables, chanted slogans, and beat drums inside the reading room.
NYPD officers in riot gear entered the building to remove the protesters, who linked arms and chanted, “We have nothing to lose but our chains!”
Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a student group involved in the protest, said it had renamed the library “the Basel Al-Araj Popular University,” in honor of a Palestinian activist killed by Israeli forces in 2017.
“The flood shows that as long as Columbia funds and profits from imperialist violence, the people will continue to disrupt Columbia’s profits and legitimacy,” the group stated.
Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition (CPSC) accused campus security of using excessive force during the arrests.
“The police violence that occurred on our campus tonight should never be normalized,” the group said.
It alleged that public safety officers assaulted student journalists, ripped clothing off demonstrators, and caused a severe concussion.
CPSC claimed that a Palestinian student who recorded the incident was attacked and choked after refusing to stop filming.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has begun implementing a policy to deport non-citizen student activists connected to last year’s pro-Palestinian protests on US campuses.
His administration claims the students’ actions are “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests” of the United States.
Columbia University became a central site in last year’s wave of nationwide campus protests against Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, with demonstrations occurring at more than 100 US universities.
