Local News
Police broke up a pro-Palestinian camp at Northeastern University on Saturday morning and arrested about 100 protesters. This is the second instance this week of law enforcement breaking up a student camp in Boston.
“This morning, the Northeastern University Police Department (NUPD) – in collaboration with local law enforcement partners – began clearing an unauthorized encampment on the university’s Boston campus,” the university said in an announcement around 8 a.m. Saturday morning.
The protesters arrange the encampment on the college's Centennial Common on Thursday, joining students from several Boston-area colleges and dozens of others across the U.S. who’ve arrange tents and staged protests in recent days after about 100 people camped out at an identical encampment had been arrested at Columbia University. The students are demanding that their schools cut ties with Israeli corporations and the military and are calling for a ceasefire within the Israel-Hamas war.
Police arrested about 100 people, Northeastern said. Anyone arrested who was in a position to produce a legitimate Northeastern ID was released, the college said.
“They face disciplinary action within the university, not legal action. Those who refused to reveal their affiliation were arrested,” the university said in an announcement.
Massachusetts State Police said they participated in clearing the encampment after NUPD requested assistance.
“State Police deployed Troop H and Special Emergency Response Team personnel to the university campus. Officers directed protesters to disperse, and MSP members helped remove protesters who refused to leave,” Dave Procopio, director of media communications for the Massachusetts State Police, said in an announcement.
“The State Police is committed to safely protecting the lawful exercise of the right to assemble and freedom of expression and to protecting the safety and property of all involved,” Procopio wrote.
footage posted by sNortheastern's student-run newspaper showed Saturday morning law enforcement officials, some in riot gear, using cable ties to tie up protesters and lead them into a close-by campus constructing, then transporting those arrested in vans.
Early Thursday, police arrested greater than 100 people at an encampment arrange by Emerson College students on a sidewalk next to the college's downtown campus.
The dispersal of the Northeast camp implies that the Boston area currently has pro-Palestinian student camps at Harvard, MIT and Tufts.
Controversy over anti-Semitic language
In an announcement released Saturday morning, Northeastern said outside agitators had joined the protest and pointed to using anti-Semitic language on campus, suggesting it was a consider the choice to disband the encampment.
“What began as a student demonstration two days ago was infiltrated by professional organizers unaffiliated with Northeastern,” the university said in an announcement opinion. “Last night the use of vicious anti-Semitic slurs, including “kill the Jews,” crossed the road. We cannot tolerate this sort of hate on our campus.”
Camp organizers claimed that almost all pro-Palestinian protesters on campus were students and that no camp member had engaged in anti-Semitism, saying on social media that “anti-Semitic statements at Northeastern were shouted by Zionist counter-protesters.”
“The camp organizers responded to the provocation with boos and demanded that the Zionist provocateurs leave,” said the scholar group Huskies for a Free Palestine posted on Instagram. “Northeastern: Take back the slander, release, expose and divest the students and workers you arrested!”
In an announcement to Boston.com Saturday afternoon, a university spokesperson did in a roundabout way address the claim that the anti-Semitic comments got here from counter-protesters.
“The fact that the phrase 'Kill the Jews' was chanted on our campus is undisputed. The Boston Globe, a trusted news organization, reported this as fact. There is also extensive video evidence. Any suggestion that disgusting anti-Semitic comments are sometimes acceptable depending on the context is reprehensible. This language has no place on any university campus,” said Renata Nyul, the college’s vp of communications.
Reporting by the referenced using the phrase “kill the Jews,” but didn’t specify whether the statement got here from a protester or counter-protester.
videos posted on social media on Friday evening appear to indicate a counter-protester holding an Israeli flag directly in front of the camp and chanting “Kill the Jews.” Several protesters responded by booing and shouting, “We’ll let them go.”
image credit : www.boston.com