VIRGINIA April 30. 2024 (Saba) - US police forcibly on Tuesday dispersed a sit-in in solidarity with Gaza at the University of Virginia and arrested a number of people.
US media, including the Washington Post, reported that several people were arrested at Virginia Commonwealth University in the Richmond area after a pro-Palestine demonstration.
It said Richmond, Virginia, police confronted demonstrators condemning the Zionist war on the Gaza Strip.
Virginia Governor Winsome Earle Sears claimed she was told that "protesters appear to be well funded and well equipped with food, cloth, tents and pallets."
In a post on Platform X on Tuesdary Morning, she wrote "Once the situation calms down, I think we will see that this was not a fully peaceful protest," according to her claim.
Also in a previous post today, Sears said: “The Virginia Commonwealth University maintenance team is dismantling the sit-in camp.”
"The crowds are being dispersed, and a number of students and non-students have been arrested."
The university said final exams begin this week and should provide students with the opportunity to complete the semester "safely and successfully." "The assembly violated many university policies," she said.
"It respectfully and repeatedly provided opportunities for participating individuals, many of whom were not students, to collect their needs and leave, and those who did not leave were arrested for trespassing."
On April 18, students rejecting the Zionist war on the Gaza Strip began a sit-in on the campus of Columbia University in New York. They demanded that its administration stop its academic cooperation with Israeli universities and withdraw its investments in companies that support the occupation of the Palestinian territories.
As police intervened and dozens of students were arrested, the anger spread to dozens of universities in the United States, including leading universities such as Harvard, George Washington, New York, Yale, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and North Carolina.
Later, the unprecedented student movement in support of Palestine in the United States expanded to universities in countries such as France, Britain, Germany, Canada and India, all of which witnessed demonstrations in support of their counterparts in American universities and demands to stop the war on Gaza and boycott companies that supply the Zionist entity with weapons.
H.H
resource : Saba
| more of (International) |