US President Joe Biden has urged pro-Palestinian protesters on university campuses to uphold the rule of law. We are a civil society, and order must prevail,” Mr Biden said from the White House, in his first direct remarks about a wave of student unrest.
Police have detained more than 2,000 people nationwide in the past fortnight at college rallies and protest camps. That includes 209 arrests early on Thursday at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).Hundreds of officers in riot gear moved on to UCLA’s main campus before dawn and cleared its pro-Palestinian camp.
They set off flash bangs and flares, loaded demonstrators onto police buses, and tore down the makeshift barriers and tents that had been erected on campus a week ago.In a statement, UCLA called the camp “both unlawful and a breach of policy. It led to unsafe conditions on our campus and it damaged our ability to carry out our mission.”
“Demonstrators directly interfered with instruction by blocking students’ pathways to classrooms,” it added, while their clashes with pro-Israeli counter-demonstrators “put too many [students] in harm’s way. Addressing the nationwide protests hours later, Mr Biden said: “We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent. But neither are we a lawless country.
“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.The campus protests in support of Gaza have now spread to nearly 140 colleges in at least 45 states, according to a BBC tally, and at least six other countries.
Demonstrators, who have been calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza war, are also demanding academic institutions financially divest from Israel and companies who stand to make money from the conflict.
Source: BBC
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