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]
The Diag is a large open space in the middle of the University of Michigan's Central Campus. Originally known as the Diagonal Green, the Diag derives its name from the many sidewalks running near or through it in diagonal directions. Many of the University's most frequented buildings are situated around the Diag, including West Hall, Randall Lab, the Shapiro Undergraduate Library, the Hatcher Graduate Library, and Angell, Mason, Haven, and Tisch Halls, among others.
Students for Justice in Palestine is a pro-Palestinian college student activism organization in the United States, Canada and New Zealand. Founded at the University of California in 2001, 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 called it "the leading pro-Palestinian voice on campus". As of 2024, National SJP has over 350 chapters in North America.
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. Since the war began on 7 October 2023, the death toll has exceeded 40,000.
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 October 7, 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 occupation protests by pro-Palestinian students occurred at Columbia University in New York City from April to June 2024, in the context of the broader Israel–Hamas war 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 that lasted until the summer. The escalation began on April 18 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. Over 3,100 protesters were arrested in the U.S., including faculty members and professors, on over 60 campuses. On May 7, protests spread across Europe with mass arrests in the Netherlands, and five days later, 20 encampments had been established in the United Kingdom and across universities in Australia and Canada.
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.
In May 2024, peaceful pro-Palestinian student protesters at the University of Virginia (UVa) demonstrated on the campus. The protesters organized an anti-war occupation on university grounds in support of Palestinian nationalism in the context of the mass death and displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians during the Israel–Hamas war.
The McGill University pro-Palestinian encampment was an occupation protest which took place on the downtown campus of McGill University, in Montreal, from 27 April to 10 July 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 took 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.
A series of protests at Ohio State University by pro-Palestinian demonstrators occurred on-campus in response to the Israel-Palestine conflict beginning on October 7, 2023. A solidarity encampment was constructed on OSU's South Oval on April 25, 2024, during which there were at least 36 arrests, making for the largest en masse arrests on campus since the 1969–1970 Vietnam War protests.
Pro-Palestinian protests at the University of Texas at Austin began on April 24, 2024, organized by the Palestinian Solidarity Committee in response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas War. The protests have included sit-ins, marches, and encampments on campus, calling for the university to divest from companies linked to Israel's actions in Gaza. The demonstrations escalated when university officials, with support from local and state law enforcement, intervened to disperse protestors, leading to multiple arrests and sparking criticism over the suppression of free speech on campus. Despite arrests and clashes with police, the protests have continued, drawing significant attention and raising debates about civil liberties and the role of university administration in managing campus protests.
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. With over 3,100 protesters arrested in the U.S., universities suspended and expelled student protesters, in some cases evicting them from campus housing, and relied on police to forcibly disband occupations.