2024 Pro-Palestinian Protests at Sciences Po | |||
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Part of the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses | |||
Date | April 2024 | ||
Location | Sciences Po, Paris, France | ||
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Inspired by the April 2024 Israel–Hamas war protests on university campuses in the United States |
The 2024 pro-Palestinian occupation protest at Sciences Po was a series of pro-Palestinian protests that took place at Sciences Po in Paris. [1] [2] The protest was part of a larger global movement of university protests in solidarity with Palestine, inspired by similar encampments at universities in the United States. [3] [4]
The protests began in response to the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. [1] Students of Sciences Po, one of France's most prestigious universities, began blocking the school's main entrance. [5] [6] Students showed their support for the Palestinians by chanting slogans and displaying Palestinian flags on the windows and doors of the building. [1]
On 26 April 2024, dozens of students blocked the entrance to a campus building in central Paris with trash, a motorcycle, pieces of metal and a wooden platform. About 40 people remained in the building overnight. The demonstration was organized by the Palestine Committee of Sciences Po, which called on the administration to cut ties with universities and companies for allegedly supporting Israel's aggression in Gaza. [3] [4]
The protests escalated when the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS) intervened to break up the demonstration. [7] [8] This renewed the protests, with the students resuming the demonstration after police intervention. [4] [9] Students continued to mobilize despite repression. [8]
After police intervention, the pro-Palestinian students peacefully evacuated the campus building. [10] The head of Sciences Po said that an agreement was reached with the students. The students stated that they would to continue supporting the Palestinian movement. [10]
Intifada is an Arabic word for a rebellion or uprising, or a resistance movement. It can be used to refer to an uprising against oppression.
Students for Justice in Palestine is a pro-Palestinian college student activism organization in the United States, Canada and New Zealand. It has campaigned for boycott and divestment against corporations that deal with Israel and organized events about Israel's human rights violations. In 2011, The New York Times reported that "S.J.P., founded in 2001 at the University of California, Berkeley, has become the leading pro-Palestinian voice on campus."
Columbia University in New York City, New York, has seen numerous instances of student protests, particularly beginning in the late 20th century.
The Israel–Hamas war has sparked protests, demonstrations, and vigils around the world. These events focused on a variety of issues related to the conflict, including demands for a ceasefire, an end to the Israeli blockade and occupation, return of Israeli hostages, protesting war crimes, and providing humanitarian aid to Gaza. Protests against Israeli action in Gaza were notably large across the Arab world. Since the war began on 7 October 2023, the number of dead has exceeded 30,000.
Protests, including rallies, demonstrations, campaigns, and vigils, relating to the Israel–Hamas war have occurred nationwide across the United States since the conflict's start on 7 October 2023, occurring as part of a broader phenomenon of the Israel–Hamas war protests around the world.
As a result of the Israel–Hamas war, nationwide protests occurred across the UK. These demonstrations occurred as part of a broader movement of war-related protests occurring around the world.
A series of pro-Palestinian protests were held in the United States on April 15, 2024.
A series of ongoing occupation protests by pro-Palestinian students occurred at Columbia University in New York City in April 2024, in the context of the broader Israel–Hamas war related protests in the United States. The protests began on April 17, 2024, when pro-Palestinian students established an encampment of approximately 50 tents on the university campus, calling it the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, and demanded the university divest from Israel.
Pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses escalated in April 2024, spreading in the United States and other countries, as part of wider Israel–Hamas war protests. The escalation began after mass arrests at the Columbia University campus occupation, led by anti-Zionist groups, in which protesters demanded the university's disinvestment from Israel over its alleged genocide of Palestinians. In the U.S. over 2,950 protesters have been arrested, including faculty members and professors, on over 60 campuses. On May 7, protests spread across Europe with mass arrests in the Netherlands. By May 12, twenty encampments had been established in the United Kingdom, and across universities in Australia and Canada. Some protesters have referred to the movement as the "student intifada".
On April 25, 2024, a student protest began at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to protest the administration's investments in Israel. The occupation, self-titled as the 'Palestine Solidarity Encampment', was a part of pro-Palestine protests on university campuses campaigning for divestment from Israel. The encampment was attacked multiple times by counter protestors, leading to clashes. On May 2, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) raided and dismantled the encampment, arresting the protestors and ending the occupation.
On April 29, 2024, approximately 100 University of Oregon students established a camp on the Eugene campus to support Palestinians in Gaza and demanding action from administrators. As part of the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, demonstrators requested for the university to divest from “the state of Israel, Israeli companies, and any weapons or surveillance manufacturing.”
In May 2024, pro-Palestinian student protesters at the University of Virginia demonstrated on the campus. The protesters organized an occupation on university grounds in support of Palestinian nationalism in the context of the Israel–Hamas war.
The McGill University pro-Palestinian encampment is an ongoing occupation protest which has been taking place on the downtown campus of McGill University, in Montreal, since 27 April 2024. It was the first notable Canadian demonstration in the 2024 movement of pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, which call for universities to cut ties with Israel amid the country's assault on Gaza in the Israel–Hamas war. Like many of its predecessors, the protest at McGill takes the form of an encampment, a group of tents occupied day and night by protesters.
On May 6, 2024 University of Amsterdam (UvA) students established a pro-Palestinian protest occupation on the Roeterseiland campus to support Palestinians in Gaza and demand action from administrators. This became the first in a series of pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses throughout the Netherlands. On May 7, 169 people were detained when the police used a bulldozer to break down the barricades after the protesters refused to leave.
The pro-Palestinian campus occupations at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands were a series of occupation protests, as part of the broader protests against the Israel–Hamas war. On 13 May 2024 protesters created an encampment, similar to other campus protests in the Netherlands, the United States and other countries. On 20 May a second encampment was established next to the universities' administrative building. On 5 June after the occupation of another university building, police cleared the encampment. The protesters demanded that the university board divest from Israel over its alleged genocide of Palestinians and invasion of the Gaza Strip, and to support Palestinian students and universities. The protests included walkouts, daily marches, temporary occupations, as well as vandalism.
On May 6, 2024, pro-Palestinian protests broke out at the University of Amsterdam which quickly spread to other universities in the Randstad and the rest of the Netherlands. Although protests had been taking place as early as October 2023, which marks the start of the Israel–Hamas war, the protests intensified in May in the light of the Rafah offensive on May 6 and recent similar protests in the United States and elsewhere.
The pro-Palestinian campus occupations at the University of Oxford are ongoing occupation protests in Oxford, England, organised by Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P). The occupations started on 6 May 2024 on the Museum of Natural History's lawn, in front of the Pitt Rivers Museum. As part of an escalation or protests, a second encampment was established on 19 May outside the Radcliffe Camera. Protests have taken elsewhere in the city, including on Wellington Square, where 17 students were arrested after occupying the Vice-Chancellor's office on 23 May. Protesters demands include disclosure of investments and divestment from Israeli companies, among others. The university initially refused to negotiate with protesters, prior to agreeing to meeting with organizers the following month. The protests have been supported by over 500 members of staff, and criticised by the university as intimidating.