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Category: Protest

  • As Peace Protests Are Violently Suppressed, CNN Paints Them as Hate Rallies

     

    As peace activists occupied common spaces on campuses across the country, some in corporate media very clearly took sides, portraying student protesters as violent, hateful and/or stupid. CNN offered some of the most striking of these characterizations.

    CNN's Dana Bash: Clashes at Campuses Nationwide as Protest Intensify

    CNN‘s Dana Bash (Inside Politics, 5/1/24) blames the peace movement for “destruction, violence and hate on college campuses across the country.” 

    Dana Bash (Inside Politics, 5/1/24) stared gravely into the camera and launched into a segment on “destruction, violence and hate on college campuses across the country.” Her voice dripping with hostility toward the protests, she reported:

    Many of these protests started peacefully with legitimate questions about the war, but in many cases, they lost the plot. They’re calling for a ceasefire. Well, there was a ceasefire on October 6, the day before Hamas terrorists brutally murdered more than a thousand people inside Israel and took hundreds more as hostages. This hour, I’ll speak to an American Israeli family whose son is still held captive by Hamas since that horrifying day, that brought us to this moment. You don’t hear the pro-Palestinian protesters talking about that. We will.

    By Bash’s logic, once a ceasefire is broken, no one can ever call for it to be reinstated—even as the death toll in Gaza nears 35,000. But her claim that there was a ceasefire until Hamas broke it on October 7 is little more than Israeli propaganda: Hundreds of Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the year preceding October 7 (FAIR.org, 7/6/23).

    ‘Hearkening back to 1930s Europe’

    Eli Tsives confronting protesters at UCLA

    “They didn’t let me get to class using the main entrance!” complains Eli Tsives in one of several videos he posted of confrontations with anti-war demonstrators. “Instead they forced me to walk around. Shame on these people!”

    Bash continued:

    Now protesting the way the Israeli government, the Israeli prime minister, is prosecuting the retaliatory war against Hamas is one thing. Making Jewish students feel unsafe at their own schools is unacceptable, and it is happening way too much right now.

    As evidence of this lack of safety, Bash pointed to UCLA student Eli Tsives, who posted a video of himself confronting motionless antiwar protesters physically standing in his way on campus. “This is our school, and they’re not letting me walk in,” he claims in the clip. Bash ominously described this as “hearkening back to the 1930s in Europe.”

    Bash was presumably referring to the rise of the Nazis and their increasing restrictions on Jews prior to World War II. But while Tsives’ clip suggests protesters are keeping him off UCLA campus, they’re in fact blocking him from their encampment—where many Jewish students were present. (Jewish Voice for Peace is one of its lead groups.)

    So it’s clearly not Tsives’ Jewishness that the protesters object to. But Tsives was not just any Jewish student; a UCLA drama student and former intern at the pro-Israel group Stand With Us, he had been a visible face of the counter-protests, repeatedly posting videos of himself confronting peaceful antiwar protesters. He has shown up to the encampment wearing a holster of pepper spray.

    One earlier video he made showing himself being denied entry to the encampment included text on screen claiming misleadingly that protestors objected to his Jewishness: “They prevented us, Jewish students, from entering public land!” (“You can kiss your jobs goodbye, this is going to go viral on social media,” he tells the protesters.) He also proudly posted his multiple interviews on Fox News, which was as eager as Bash to help him promote his false narrative of antisemitism.

    ‘Attacking each other’

    Daily Bruin: Pro-Israel counter-protesters attempt to storm encampment, sparking violence

    “Security and [campus police] both retreated as pro-Israel counter-protesters and other groups attacked protesters in the encampment,” UCLA’s student paper (Daily Bruin, 5/1/24) reported.

    UCLA protesters had good reason to keep counter-protesters out of their encampment, as those counter-protesters had become increasingly hostile (Forward, 5/1/24; New York Times, 4/30/24). This aggression culminated in a violent attack on the encampment on April 30 (Daily Bruin, 5/1/24).

    Late that night, a pro-Israel mob of at least 200 tried to storm the student encampment, punching, kicking, throwing bricks and other objects, spraying pepper spray and mace, trying to tear down plywood barricades and launching fireworks into the crowd. As many as 25 injuries have been reported, including four student journalists for the university newspaper who were assaulted by goons as they attempted to leave the scene (Forward, 5/2/24; Democracy Now!, 5/2/24).

    Campus security stood by as the attacks went on; when the university finally called in police support, the officers who arrived waited over an hour to intervene (LA Times, 5/1/24).

    (The police were less reticent in clearing out the encampment a day later at UCLA’s request. Reporters on the scene described police in riot gear firing rubber bullets at close range and “several instances of protesters being injured”—LA Times, 5/3/24.)

    The mob attacks at UCLA, along with police use of force at that campus and elsewhere, clearly represent the most “destruction, violence and hate” at the encampments, which have been overwhelmingly peaceful. But Bash’s description of the UCLA violence rewrote the narrative to fit her own agenda: “Pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups were attacking each other, hurling all kinds of objects, a wood pallet, fireworks, parking cones, even a scooter.”

    When CNN correspondent Stephanie Elam reported, later in the same segment, that the UCLA violence came from counter-protesters, Bash’s response was not to correct her own earlier misrepresentation, but to disparage antiwar protesters: Bash commended the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles for saying the violence does not represent the Jewish community, and snidely commented: “Be nice to see that on all sides of this.”

    ‘Violence erupted’

    Instagram: "I am a Jewish student at UCLA"

    “For me, never again is never again for anyone,” says a Jewish participant in the UCLA encampment (Instagram, 5/2/24).

    Bash wasn’t the only one at CNN framing antiwar protesters as the violent ones, against all evidence. Correspondent Camila Bernal (5/2/24) reported on the UCLA encampment:

    The mostly peaceful encampment was set up a week ago, but violence erupted during counter protest on Sunday, and even more tense moments overnight Tuesday, leaving at least 15 injured. Last night, protesters attempted to stand their ground, linking arms, using flashlights on officers’ faces, shouting and even throwing items at officers. But despite what CHP described as a dangerous operation, an almost one-to-one ratio officers to protesters gave authorities the upper hand.

    Who was injured? Who was violent? Bernal left that to viewers’ imagination. She did mention that officers used “what appeared to be rubber bullets,” but the only participant given camera time was a police officer accusing antiwar students of throwing things at police.

    Earlier CNN reporting (5/1/24) from UCLA referred to “dueling protests between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and those supporting Jewish students.” It’s a false dichotomy, as many of the antiwar protesters are themselves Jewish, and eyewitness reports suggested that many in the mob were not students and not representative of the Jewish community (Times of Israel, 5/2/24).

    CNN likewise highlighted the law and order perspective after Columbia’s president called in the NYPD to respond to the student takeover of Hamilton Hall. CNN Newsroom (5/1/24) brought on a retired FBI agent to analyze the police operation. His praise was unsurprising:

    It was impressive. It was surprisingly smooth…. The beauty of America is that we can say things, we can protest, we can do this publicly, even when it’s offensive language. But you can’t trespass and keep people from being able to go to class and going to their graduations. We draw a line between that and, you know, civil control.

    CNN host Jake Tapper (4/29/24) criticized the Columbia president’s approach to the protests—for being too lenient: “I mean, a college president’s not a diplomat. A college president’s an authoritarian, really.” (More than a week earlier, president Minouche Shafik had had more than a hundred students arrested for camping overnight on a lawn—FAIR.org, 4/19/24.)

    ‘Taking room from my show’

    Guardian: CNN staff say network’s pro-Israel slant amounts to ‘journalistic malpractice’

    “The majority of news since the war began…has been skewed by a systemic and institutional bias within the network toward Israel,” a CNN staffer told the Guardian (2/4/24).

    Tapper did little to hide his utter contempt for the protesters. He complained:

    This is taking room from my show that I would normally be spending covering what is going on in Gaza, or what is going on with the International Criminal Court, talking about maybe bringing charges. We were talking about the ceasefire deal. I mean, this—so I don’t know that the protesters, just from a media perspective, are accomplishing what they want to accomplish, because I’m actually covering the issue and the pain of the Palestinians and the pain of the Israelis—not that they’re protesting for that—less because of this.

    It’s Tapper and CNN, of course, who decide what stories are most important and deserve coverage—not campus protesters. Some might say that that a break from CNN‘s regular coverage the Israel’s assault on Gaza would not altogether be a bad thing, as CNN staffers have complained of “regurgitation of Israeli propaganda and the censoring of Palestinian perspectives in the network’s coverage of the war in Gaza” (Guardian, 2/4/24)

    The next day, Tapper’s framing of the protests made clear whose grievances he thought were the most worthy (4/30/24): “CNN continues to following the breaking news on college campuses where anti-Israel protests have disrupted academic life and learning across the United States.”

    ACTION ALERT: Messages to CNN can be sent here. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread of this post.

    The post As Peace Protests Are Violently Suppressed, CNN Paints Them as Hate Rallies appeared first on FAIR.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • Authoritarian Biden cracks down on dissent on US campuses

    US President Joe Biden insisted that “order must prevail” at US universities after weeks of turmoil and mass arrests at student protests against Israel’s siege on Palestine.

    For weeks, authorities on campuses from New York to California have tried in vain to suppress protests from students demanding arms divestment and a stop to the continued murder of thousands of Palestinians. More then 2000 students have been placed under arrest, with more expected.

    Biden has, characteristically, bided his time as his country erupts in flames. When he finally did speak, it was a pack of lies and fanciful notions of America as some kind of haven of free speech. He said:

    We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent.

    But neither are we a lawless country. We’re a civil society, and order must prevail.

    Let’s take a look at how this very much not authoritarian nation squashed dissent in the name of order.

    Menacing cops

    UCLA students clad in white helmets linked arms and formed a line facing off against officers, who were detaining protesters and leading them away.

    Police used flashbangs to disperse the crowds gathered outside the encampment who chanted “Let them go!” as helicopters hovered overhead. In another part of the encampment at UCLA, students carrying umbrellas, helmets, and plastic shields squared off against police in mostly tense silence, with sporadic chants of “Free Palestine!” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”

    University staff spoke out against the violence from police, with UCLA Professor Danielle Carr expressing outrage:

    Officers blocked stairs accessing the site, with students dressed in yellow jackets and serving as medics telling AFP they were being largely prevented from reaching the area. Reports have flooded in of pro-Israel protestors charging at the UCLA encampment, and what did the police do?

    Once UCLA student was shot in the face with a rubber bullet, and later appeared to have had his Twitter account removed:

    Human rights attorney Noura Erakat expressed disbelief:

     

    The large police presence, including LAPD and California Highway Patrol officers, came after law enforcement were criticised for being slow to act during violent clashes late Tuesday, when counter-protesters attacked the encampment of pro-Palestinian students.

    Perhaps those claiming the police were slow to react were confused with the slow reaction from cops at Sandy Hook. Guardian reporter Lois Beckett laid out how security hired by UCLA hid as pro-genocide supporters attacked students – and one commenter noted the similarities to the Uvalde shooting where police were criticised for a slow response time:

    The kids are alright

    Demonstrators have gathered on at least 40 US university campuses since last month, often erecting tent camps to protest the soaring death toll in the Gaza Strip.

    Officers detained several people at Fordham University in New York and cleared a protest set up inside a school building, officials said. Police appeared to kettle students:

    At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, protesters dug in, blocking an avenue near the centre of the campus in Cambridge during the height of Wednesday afternoon’s rush hour commute. Students paid touching tribute to visionary journalist Wael Al Dahdouh:

    Riot police were menacingly decked out as they dragged students off their own campus at the University of Texas, Dallas:

    Police said about 300 arrests were made at Columbia, and the tents shown in the tweet below have since been cleared by over-eager cops:

    However, students remain steadfast:

    BreakThrough News shared footage of alarming police violence at Dartmouth:

    Lecturer at Middlesex University Tarek Younis summed up what students across the US face:

    The mayor’s office said Thursday night that almost half of those arrested at the two schools Tuesday night were people unaffiliated with the schools.

    Balancing act

    Like university leaders, Biden’s administration has also tried to walk the fine line between free speech and complaints of intimidation. Biden said:

    There should be no place on any campus, no place in America for anti-Semitism, or threats of violence against Jewish students.

    Honestly, it’s getting tired.

    Student protests across America and around the rest of the world are not antisemitic – they’re a response to the interminable siege of Palestine.

    What else are students supposed to? Sit back and watch as universities in Palestine are razed to the ground? Do nothing while the US arms Israel? Twiddle their fingers while experts predict that 10,000 Palestinians are buried in rubble that will take years to clear?

    What are the police supposed to do then, you may ask?

    Stay the hell away:

    Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Palestine Action use van to block entrance to Elbit factory – as the police look haplessly on

    Cops are getting more and more hapless when it comes to dealing with Palestine Action – as a blockade of Elbit’s Bristol site – involved in Israel’s genocide – just showed.

    Palestine Action: blocking Elbit again

    On Thursday 2 May, Palestine Action activists have, once again, managed to halt business-as-usual at the centre of Elbit System’s operations in Britain, at their headquarters located at ‘Aztec West 600’ in Bristol:

    That site is used by Elbit – Israel’s largest weapons company – to oversee their logistical, financial, and operational affairs throughout the country, making it a key hub for Israel’s arms trade in Britain.

    Activists used a van to blockade the road leading to the site, directly outside the premises’ gates, affixing themselves to it to prevent its removal:

    Palestine Action Elbit Bristol

    From inside, and utilising holes cut in the van roof, they launched red paint at the Elbit site – to mark it in a symbol of the Palestinian bloodshed staining Elbit’s profits:

    They held the blockade for hours, preventing the headquarters from opening and thus hindering the manufacture and supply of weaponry to Israel. Eventually though, cops managed to get themselves organised enough to arrest the actionists:

    This is far from the first time that Palestine Action has blockaded Elbit’s Bristol HQ in the months since Israel’s genocide in Gaza commenced.

    The action successfully forced the site closed despite the ongoing police harassment of activists in Bristol – last week conducting a raid on a dwelling to make nine arrests. As Bristol Live reported:

    Multiple people have been arrested after an overnight police raid in Bristol. Nine people were taken into custody at an address in Bristol overnight between April 24 and 25, police have confirmed.

    According to the group Palestine Action, members were arrested for “allegedly conspiring to commit criminal damage”. Posting on social media, the organisation said 15 people had been taken into custody, but Avon and Somerset Police has said nine people were arrested.

    A spokesperson for Avon and Somerset Police said: “Nine people were arrested at an address in Bristol over the night of 24 and 25 April on suspicion of conspiracy to cause criminal damage. They have since been released on conditional police bail.”

    Shut Elbit down

    It is obvious, however, that the need to shut this site, and all Elbit sites, down could not be more urgent: their weapons are playing a central role in Israel’s campaign in Gaza, which has already claimed over 34,000 Palestinian lives.

    According to Israeli media, Elbit provides up to 80% of the Israeli military’s land based military equipment and 85% of its military drones. It supplies vast numbers of munitions and missiles – including the ‘Iron Sting’ recently developed and deployed for the first time in the 2023-2024 Genocide in Gaza, along with wide categories of surveillance technologies, targeting systems, and innumerate other armaments.

    Palestine Action said in a statement:

    We have a moral duty therefore not to permit these weapons to be manufactured in Britain, if we wish to not be complicit in Israel’s genocidal acts.

    Underscoring this risk of complicity, Somerset Council’s CEO last week reversed the democratic decision of the Council – apologising to Elbit for passing a motion which provided the mandate for evicting the weapons giant from the Aztec West site ultimately owned by Somerset Council.

    Palestine Action have made clear that this site, and Elbit generally, should not be permitted to operate – and that activists will continue to take direct action until it is shut down permanently.

    Featured image and additional images via Palestine Action

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Divestment Can’t Work, Media Tell Protesters—Even Though It Has

     

    WaPo: Secret meetings, social chatter: How Columbia students sparked a nationwide revolt

    A Washington Post “expert” (4/26/24) assured readers that divestment is “way more complicated” than protesters think.

    In a piece on how the nationwide protest campaign against the Israeli slaughter in Gaza came to be, the Washington Post (4/26/24) explained that the central demand of the protests—university divestment from companies that support the genocide—is, well, stupid.

    The article reported: “Experts say student requests for divestment are not only impractical but also are likely to yield little if any real benefit.”

    “How universities invest their money makes disinvestment complicated,” declared one such expert—”Chris Marsicano, a Davidson College assistant professor of educational studies who researches endowments and finance.”

    “First, it’s impossible to know just how and where universities’ endowments are invested,” he maintained, because “schools are notoriously close-mouthed about it, revealing as little as they can.” Yes, which is why, as the Post noted, investment transparency is the second of three demands from Columbia University protesters, and a key issue in many other encampments.

    But not so fast, Marsicano warns: “Disclosing investments can lead to complications large and small,” including “the possibility that a university disclosing its decision to sell or buy stock could affect the price of that stock.”

    Surely that will keep a lot of protesters up at night—the fear that their university’s sale of stock might cause Boeing’s stock price to drop.

    Doing Israel’s supporters a favor?

    WSJ: Dear Columbia Students, Divestment From Israel Won’t Work

    The Wall Street Journal‘s James Mackintosh (4/30/24) compared the Gaza protests to “misguided demands to quit investments in fossil fuel companies to slow climate change.”

    But they need not worry, assured James Mackintosh, senior market columnist for the Wall Street Journal, who offered some friendly advice in “Dear Columbia Students, Divestment From Israel Won’t Work” (4/30/24).  “The impact of even a lot of universities selling would be negligible,” he wrote. In fact, any financial impact from divestment would be counter-productive:

    Selling the shares cheaply to someone else just leaves the buyer owning the future profits instead, at a bargain price. The university would have less money to spend on students, while those who are pro-Israel, pro-oil or just pro-profit would have more.

    The economic logic is so compelling, you have to wonder why supporters of Israel aren’t supporting the divestment movement, rather than pushing for laws that make divestment from Israel illegal.

    But, really, why is anyone even talking about divestment, when it can’t even happen? As former Berkeley chancellor Nicholas Dirks told CNN (4/30/24):

    The economy is so global now that even if a university decided that they were going to instruct their dominant management groups to divest from Israel, it would be almost impossible to disentangle…. It’s not clear to me that it’s really possible to fully divest from companies that touch in some way a country with such close political and trade ties to the US.

    Helping spark a movement

    Columbia Spectator: Mandela Hall: A History of the 1985 Divest Protests

    Columbia Spectator (4/13/16): “During that fateful month in 1985, a protest movement in favor of divestment from the National Party of South Africa’s apartheid regime rocked Columbia to its core.”

    So, divestment would be dangerous, self-defeating and impossible, is what we’re hearing from corporate media. Why are students even bothering?

    At Columbia, protesters are well aware of the history there, where students blockaded Hamilton Hall for three weeks in April 1985 to protest the university’s investments in South Africa. A committee of the school’s trustees recommended full divestment in August 1985, a recommendation the board adopted in October 1985.

    The first secret negotiations between the imprisoned Nelson Mandela and the South African government about ending apartheid began in November 1985.

    Obviously, this wasn’t just a result of Columbia’s protest—but the divestment campaign there helped spark a nationwide movement that spread beyond campuses, establishing a consensus that South Africa’s behavior was unconscionable and had to change.

    It’s hard not to suspect that corporate media are telling us so firmly that divestment can’t work because they’re worried that it can.

     

     

     

     

     

    The post Divestment Can’t Work, Media Tell Protesters—Even Though It Has appeared first on FAIR.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • Journalist pushed, his phone charger stolen at UCLA protest

    Independent journalist Anthony Cabassa was pushed against a wall and his phone charger stolen while reporting on pro-Palestinian protests at the University of California, Los Angeles on April 30, 2024.

    UCLA’s student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, reported that protesters had erected the encampment on campus April 25 to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza war and demand that the UC system divest from companies that invest in weapons manufacturers for the Israeli military.

    Shortly after 1 p.m. on the 30th, Cabassa reported on social media that an individual had stolen his phone charger because he refused to stop filming in a public space. He noted that by the time he was able to speak to university police, the thief was long gone.

    In subsequent posts, Cabassa also said that a group of protesters grabbed him and kept him pinned against a wall for approximately a minute in order to prevent him from entering or otherwise reporting on the encampment. In footage of the incident, Cabassa can be heard identifying himself as a credentialed journalist and stating that he has a right to be on public property.

    Cabassa did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment.


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • UCLA journalist sprayed with chemical irritant at protest

    Four student journalists were assaulted by counterprotesters while reporting on protests at the University of California, Los Angeles in the early hours of May 1, 2024. One was beaten and kicked, another repeatedly punched and briefly hospitalized, and all were sprayed with chemical irritants.

    UCLA’s student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, reported that protesters had erected the encampment on campus April 25 to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza war and demand that the UC system divest from companies that invest in weapons manufacturers for the Israeli military.

    As the protest neared its seventh day, a group of approximately 100 pro-Israeli counterprotesters attempted to storm the encampment, the Bruin reported, tearing down the barricades surrounding it and shooting fireworks inside.

    Catherine Hamilton, news editor for the Bruin, told the Los Angeles Times that shortly before 3:30 a.m., counterprotesters started chanting her name while shining a light on her, and that she recognized the leader of the group as someone who had previously harassed her.

    Hamilton told the Times that the individual directed the others to encircle her, senior staff reporter Shaanth Kodialam and two other Bruin journalists. The group then began spraying the journalists with a chemical irritant while continuing to shine lights on them and chanting Hamilton’s name.

    As she tried to break free, Hamilton said, the assailants punched her repeatedly in the chest and abdomen. Another student journalist was pushed to the ground and then beaten and kicked for nearly a minute, the Times reported.

    Kodialam told the Times they watched as their friend was pummeled and begged the counterprotesters to stop.

    Hamilton said that the Bruin reporters were instructed to travel in pairs, report from outside the student encampment and leave if the protest became unsafe.

    “We expected to be harassed by counterprotesters,” Hamilton said. “I truly did not expect to be directly assaulted.”

    The encounter lasted approximately five minutes, the Times reported, and the journalists returned to the Bruin newsroom afterward. Hamilton was the only student who reported going to the hospital for injuries sustained during the attack.

    “It’s not easy to do that job. It’s not easy to cover this event,” Kodialam said. “At the end of the day, we’re all trying our best to serve our campus community and make sure our students, our faculty, our staff get the information they need.”


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Student journalist kicked, beaten at UCLA protest

    Four student journalists were assaulted by counterprotesters while reporting on a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles in the early hours of May 1, 2024. One was beaten and kicked, another repeatedly punched and briefly hospitalized, and all were sprayed with chemical irritants.

    UCLA’s student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, reported that protesters had erected the encampment on campus April 25 to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza war and demand that the UC system divest from companies that invest in weapons manufacturers for the Israeli military.

    As the protest neared its seventh day, a group of approximately 100 pro-Israeli counterprotesters attempted to storm the encampment, the Bruin reported, tearing down the barricades surrounding it and shooting fireworks inside.

    Catherine Hamilton, news editor for the Bruin, told the Los Angeles Times that shortly before 3:30 a.m., counterprotesters started chanting her name while shining a light on her, and that she recognized the leader of the group as someone who had previously harassed her.

    Hamilton told the Times that the individual directed the others to encircle her, senior staff reporter Shaanth Kodialam and the two other Bruin journalists. The group then began spraying the journalists with a chemical irritant while continuing to shine lights on them and chanting Hamilton’s name.

    In an interview with Democracy Now, Kodialam said: “By the time I had finally managed to help get three of us out of there, we found one of us had turned back. And by the time we had looked back around, they were on the ground being violently assaulted.”

    The student journalist who had been pushed to the ground was beaten and kicked for nearly a minute, the Times reported, while Kodialam begged the counterprotesters to stop.

    Hamilton told the Times that the Bruin reporters were instructed to travel in pairs, report from outside the student encampment and leave if the protest became unsafe, but that she didn’t expect they’d be directly assaulted.

    The encounter lasted approximately five minutes, the Times reported, and the journalists returned to the Bruin newsroom afterward. Hamilton was the only student who reported going to the hospital for injuries sustained during the attack.

    “It’s not easy to do that job. It’s not easy to cover this event,” Kodialam told the Times. “At the end of the day, we’re all trying our best to serve our campus community and make sure our students, our faculty, our staff get the information they need.”


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Student journalist sprayed with chemical irritant at UCLA protest

    Student journalist Shaanth Kodialam and three colleagues were assaulted by counterprotesters while reporting on a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles in the early hours of May 1, 2024. Kodialam was sprayed with a chemical irritant — as were the others — while another was repeatedly punched and briefly hospitalized and a fourth beaten and kicked.

    UCLA’s student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, reported that protesters had erected the encampment on campus April 25 to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza war and demand that the UC system divest from companies that invest in weapons manufacturers for the Israeli military.

    As the protest neared its seventh day, a group of approximately 100 pro-Israeli counterprotesters attempted to storm the encampment, the Bruin reported, tearing down the barricades surrounding it and shooting fireworks inside.

    Catherine Hamilton, news editor for the Bruin, told the Los Angeles Times that shortly before 3:30 a.m., counterprotesters started chanting her name while shining a light on her, and that she recognized the leader of the group as someone who had previously harassed her.

    Hamilton told the Times that the individual directed the others to encircle her, Kodialam and two other Bruin journalists. The group then began spraying the journalists with a chemical irritant while continuing to shine lights on them. As Hamilton tried to break free, she said the assailants punched her repeatedly in the chest and abdomen, and another student journalist was beaten and kicked on the ground.

    Kodialam, a senior staff reporter for the Bruin, told the Times they begged the counterprotesters to stop as they watched their friend get pummeled.

    “It’s not easy to do that job. It’s not easy to cover this event,” Kodialam said. “At the end of the day, we’re all trying our best to serve our campus community and make sure our students, our faculty, our staff get the information they need.”

    Hamilton told the Times that the Bruin reporters were instructed to travel in pairs, report from outside the student encampment and leave if the protest became unsafe, but that she didn’t expect they’d be directly assaulted.

    The encounter lasted approximately five minutes, the Times reported, and the journalists returned to the Bruin newsroom afterward. Hamilton was the only student who reported going to the hospital for injuries sustained during the attack.

    Kodialam told the Times that they resumed their coverage of the encampment that same day.

    “I can’t sit back while I watch my friends, my peers, the people who have trained me, the people who I have trained, be hurt that way and allow myself to not continue to do my job,” Kodialam said.


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Student journalist injured in targeted attack at UCLA protest

    Student journalist Catherine Hamilton and three colleagues were assaulted by counterprotesters while reporting on a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles in the early hours of May 1, 2024. Hamilton was briefly hospitalized following the attack, in which she was repeatedly punched and another student journalist beaten and kicked.

    UCLA’s student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, reported that protesters had erected the encampment on campus April 25 to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza war and demand that the UC system divest from companies that invest in weapons manufacturers for the Israeli military.

    As the protest neared its seventh day, a group of approximately 100 pro-Israeli counterprotesters attempted to storm the encampment, the Bruin reported, tearing down the barricades surrounding it and shooting fireworks inside.

    Hamilton, news editor for the Bruin, told the Los Angeles Times that shortly before 3:30 a.m., counterprotesters started chanting her name while shining a light on her, and that she recognized the leader of the group as someone who had previously harassed her.

    The individual directed the others to encircle Hamilton and three other Bruin journalists, Hamilton told the Times. The group then began spraying the journalists with a chemical irritant while continuing to shine lights on them and chanting Hamilton’s name. As she tried to break free, Hamilton said the assailants punched her repeatedly in the chest and abdomen, and another student journalist was beaten and kicked on the ground.

    Hamilton told the Times that the Bruin reporters were instructed to travel in pairs, report from outside the student encampment and leave if the protest became unsafe.

    “We expected to be harassed by counterprotesters,” Hamilton said. “I truly did not expect to be directly assaulted.”

    The Times reported that the attack lasted approximately five minutes, and the journalists returned to the Bruin newsroom afterward. Hamilton went to the hospital when she experienced difficulty breathing and standing, but reported in a post on social media that she was released several hours later.

    “Wasn’t expecting the night to end like this, but please continue following the Daily Bruin’s coverage on the pro-Palestine encampment at UCLA and the violence toward it,” she wrote. “Amid the assaults on reporters, student journalism will remain so important.”


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Police shove journalist covering pro-Palestinian protest outside NYC campus

    Independent journalist Katie Smith was shoved by police officers while covering a pro-Palestinian protest outside a New York City college campus on April 30, 2024.

    Smith, who covers protests and social movements in New York, was documenting a group of protesters visiting student encampments at five campuses around New York that day. When the protesters reached City College of New York in upper Manhattan, they were met by police at metal barricades and gates blocking access to the encampment, according to local news reports and Smith’s posts on the social media platform X.

    At one point, Smith posted that “the situation at CCNY has rapidly spiraled out of control,” adding, “Protesters tried to break through the barricades which led to absolute chaos breaking out. People thrown to the ground and journalists (including me) were hit and shoved by officers in the melee.”

    Smith detailed her encounter for the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, explaining that she was standing on the sidewalk outside the CCNY campus and filming with her phone when protesters started moving barricades that the police had set up.

    “Officers began grabbing and pushing protesters near the barricades when a group of Community Affairs officers moved in behind me and grabbed a protester. At that point, I intentionally backed up so I was not directly in front,” she told the Tracker. “Then, a group of Community Affairs officers moved in from behind and grabbed and surrounded a protester, which is when one of the Community Affairs officers shoved me hard directly in the center of my chest.”

    Smith said she was “wearing my NYC-issued press credential around my neck, clearly displayed.” She added, “I believe I was just caught up in the protest for the most part.”

    There were additional confrontations between police and campus protesters in New York that night, leading to several hundred arrests at CCNY and Columbia University, according to news reports.

    In response to a request for comment about the incident and any measures the department was taking to protect the safety of journalists covering the protests, the NYPD sent the Tracker a video of a news conference held May 1 by Mayor Eric Adams, Police Commissioner Edward Caban and other police officials.

    While the officials did not directly address Smith’s case, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Tarik Sheppard and Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry said press access needed to go through the department so that the media didn’t interfere with police operations or get mistaken for students or protesters.


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • “People Could Have Died”: Police Raid UCLA Gaza Protest After Pro-Israel Mob Attacked Encampment


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • “People Could Have Died”: Police Raid UCLA Gaza Protest, Waited as Pro-Israel Mob Attacked Encampment

    Ucla1

    We get an update from the University of California, Los Angeles, where police in riot gear began dismantling a pro-Palestinian encampment early Thursday, using flashbang grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas, and arresting dozens of students. The raid came just over a day after pro-Israel counterprotesters armed with sticks, metal rods and fireworks attacked students at the encampment. The Real News Network reporter Mel Buer was on the scene during the attack. She describes seeing counterprotesters provoke students, yelling slurs and bludgeoning them with parts of the encampment’s barricade, and says the attack lasted several hours without police or security intervention. ”UCLA is complicit in violence inflicted upon protesters,” wrote the editorial board of UCLA’s campus newspaper, the Daily Bruin, the next day. Four of the paper’s student journalists were targeted and assaulted by counterprotesters while covering the protests. We speak with Shaanth Kodialam Nanguneri, one of the student journalists, who says one of their colleagues was hospitalized over the assault, while campus security officers “were nowhere to be found.” Meanwhile, UCLA’s chapter of Faculty for Justice in Palestine has called on faculty to refuse university labor Thursday in protest of the administration’s failure to protect students from what it termed “Zionist mobs.” Professor Gaye Theresa Johnson, a member of UCLA Faculty for Justice in Palestine, denounces the administration’s response to nonviolent protest and says she sees the events as part of a major sea change in the politicization of American youth. “This is a movement. It cannot be unseen. It cannot be put back in the box.”


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • US university occupations over Israel’s genocide in Gaza have now spread to the UK

    As students in the US hold the line across multiple universities in their occupations over Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, young people in the UK are now joining them – with encampments being set up in both Manchester and Sheffield – as well as Edinburgh, Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle, and Warwick.

    Manchester: students set up encampment

    First, and over 50 students at the University of Manchester have taken camp in solidarity with Palestinians facing genocide in Gaza. They demand that the University ends its partnership with BAE Systems and other arms companies, cuts its ties with Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, stops all unethical research, and refrains from taking disciplinary action against students.

    With a coalition of over 200 students involved in the encampment, inspired by other similar actions across the world, they are calling for the University of Manchester to be held accountable for its complicity in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, and failure to take action over its extensive ties to Israel:

    The Encampment demands that the university must:

    • End its partnership with BAE Systems.
    • Cut ties with Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
    • Adopt a policy ensuring that all research is ethical and doesn’t contribute towards the arms trade.
    • Not pursue disciplinary action against any students involved in the Encampment, occupations or other protests.

    Universities: tied to genocide

    Tel Aviv University – whom the University of Manchester has a research partnership with – developed the Dahiya Doctrine, which calls for the mass targeting of civilian infrastructure. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem is built on illegally occupied land, with exchange students from UoM sent to live in these settlements.

    BAE Systems is Europe’s largest arms company and is involved in producing F-35 and F-16 jets, which are used against Palestinians in Gaza. The University of Manchester has no policy regulating whether research could be used to harm lives or for other unethical purposes, and has received at least £15 Million in research funding from arms companies in the last 5 years.

    The current encampment follows the previous Roscoe and Simon building occupations, and other actions taken across campus by students, including several BAE and BNY Mellon event crashes.

    The University of Manchester has not responded to the demands of the students, and when pressed on the issue of the University’s research ties during an open meeting in March, Vice-Chancellor Nancy Rothwell denied that arms companies are unethical.

    Solidarity with the struggle

    A student was suspended earlier this month for releasing a recording of Nancy Rothwell’s comments, as well as for participating in other protests on campus. Students are demanding that the suspension is lifted and that disciplinary action is not taken against any students participating in protests. There have been further controversial comments in open meetings by the Vice Chancellor since this occurred.

    The launch of the encampment coincides with others in at least four other cities, who are joining Warwick and Edinburgh in camping for Palestine.

    A spokesperson for the Encampment said:

    The struggle of the Palestinian people to keep their dignity and livelihood is still going strong. We stand in solidarity with all who are fighting for a Palestine free of genocide and occupation, from the River to the Sea.

    The movement is spreading across the UK now – with seven universities currently witnessing occupations:

    For example, students in Sheffield have taken similar action over Israel’s genocide and apartheid.

    Sheffield: the occupation begins

    Students at the University of Sheffield have also begun a mass encampment in solidarity with the Palestinian people and in protest against allegations of their university’s complicity in Israel’s apartheid and the ongoing bombardment of Gaza.

    On Wednesday 1 May, the action started with planned walk-outs of lectures and teaching activities, followed by a demonstration. As the demonstration neared its end, students could be seen setting up tents and gazebos outside university buildings.

    Combined with solidarity encampments created by students at the Universities of Warwick and Edinburgh last week, this marks the spread of the tactics of the US student movement (as seen at Columbia and at least 30 other US institutions) to the UK. Multiple other coordinated encampments are expected imminently.

    The protests are led by the Sheffield Campus Coalition for Palestine (SCCP), a coalition of staff, students, and alumni from the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University. They are backed by staff members,  local trades unionists, and community groups such as Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and Jews Against Israeli Apartheid.

    Calling out the university’s complicity

    The latter have issued a statement of support, saying they welcome the walk out and:

    call on all students and staff to do so and resolve to hold their University to account for its complicity with the genocide perpetrated by Israel in Palestine.

    Student demonstrators point to the role played by the university’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) in manufacturing the F-35 combat aircraft used by the Israeli military. The AMRC boasts that its ‘novel, fully automated manufacturing process’ has been used to provide ‘critical fuselage panels’ for more than 500 F-35 Lightning II aircraft, saving arms manufacturer BAE Systems £15m in costs in the process.

    A Dutch court recently ordered the country’s government to immediately suspend all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, due to concerns that they were being used to violate international law.

    Multiple demands

    Sheffield students have several demands:

    • Divest (سحب العلاقات): We call on the University of Sheffield to divest from weapons manufacturing. The University should not be aiding in supplying instruments of warfare to a genocidal state.
    • Boycott (مقاطعة): We demand that the institution sever all ties to Israeli universities. Israeli academic institutions have long served as pillars of Israel’s system of oppression against Palestinians, with many universities utterly entangled in the violent machinery of Palestinian dispossession, occupation, incarceration, surveillance, siege and most recently genocide.
    • Accountability (مساءلة): We hold the University of Sheffield accountable for their complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian people. The campus community demands that the University agree to a meeting with students and staff.

    A student spokesperson for SCCP said:

    The university can house decolonial lecturers in their theatres whilst simultaneously profiting off settler-colonial projects. But now the fig leaf has fallen, revealing the University of Sheffield not as an academic institution, but rather as a brazen hub for weapons manufacturers.

    Most egregiously, the University has been found to have helped streamline and produce the very instruments of warfare Israel used in its ruthless and indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza. It is for that reason that we students have come to charge the university with complicity in the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. Our demand is clear: divest now.

    UK universities joining a worldwide movement

    The university’s involvement in F-35 production supplying Israel is part of a pattern of close ties with the arms industry. In 2022, a freedom of information request (FOI) revealed that Sheffield took at least £72m in investment from the arms trade over the preceding decade.

    This level of investment is exceptionally high in the context of British higher education. Last year openDemocracy reported that Sheffield University received more defence funding than any other institution, taking over £42m, while Oxford and Cambridge took £17m and £10m respectively.

    University of Sheffield lecturer, Dr Lisa Stampnitzky, said:

    I am proud to see our students taking a stand and joining this worldwide movement against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Our university needs to confirm its commitment to be an ethical institution and divest itself of ties to the development of weapons used to perpetrate atrocities.

    Students have expressed concerns about the influence exerted by these companies on the university’s research agenda and teaching. The protesters draw attention to the AMRC’s membership scheme, which allows private companies to mould research priorities, and to the role played by Industrial Advisory Boards (IABs) in some university departments. Both feature representation from arms companies.

    Featured image via SCCP

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Notorious genocide-supporting banks just got the Palestine Action mash up treatment

    On Wednesday 1 May, Palestine Action activists sabotaged the sites of numerous firms complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, hitting companies and banks which invest heavily in the Israeli war machine.

    Palestine Action: Israel-supporting banks targeted

    BNY Mellon and Barclays had their premises smashed into and the buildings covered in blood-red paint by Palestine Action – symbolic of the Palestinian bloodshed which drenches the profits they draw for their shareholders:

    These financial institutions are all major shareholders in Israel’s largest weapons company, Elbit Systems, which has itself been the target of relentless direct action by the Palestine Action network. Elbit Systems provides 85% of Israel’s drones, and up to 80% of its land-based military equipment. Its weaponry is playing a central role in the Israeli campaign in Gaza, which has so far claimed over 34,000 lives, while also having long-upheld the settler colony’s system of apartheid in the Palestinian land it occupies.

    Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon), which has, too, been targeted by Palestine Action numerous times in recent months have had their branch in Manchester drenched in red and its windows smashed through:

    BNY Mellon invests over $10m in Elbit Systems, and – like the others targeted – draws financial returns from Elbit’s sales to the genocidal Israeli occupation regime.

    Barclays sent a clear message

    The Manchester office of Barclays Wealth and Investment Management, shares a building with BNY Mellon, and was targeted in the same fashion, to send a clear message to cut its complicity:

    Palestine Action Israel

    The British bank has long been a target for campaigners due to its shareholdings in Elbit Systems, these shares forming part of the £1.3bn that the bank has invested in firms supplying weapons and military technologies to Israel’s military [5]. With investments in firms including Raytheon and BAE Systems, Barclays’ interest in Israeli war crimes is as demonstrable as it is immoral.

    A Palestine Action spokesperson has stated:

    While Israel prepares to invade Rafah, looking to slaughter more thousands of starved, sieged, and displaced Palestinians, we cannot forget that many people are making millions from this murder. BNY Mellon, and Barclays have a duty not to aid and abet Israel’s war crimes and genocide – until they decide to enforce this, Palestine Action will continue to remind them of the blood soaking their balance-sheets.

    Featured image and additional images via Palestine Action

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Broadcast reporter charged following investigation of protest arrest

    KTBC broadcast photographer Carlos Sanchez was charged on April 26, 2024, with the felony assault of a peace officer, the Austin American-Statesman reported, two days after he was arrested filming a student protest at the University of Texas at Austin. The charge was downgraded to two misdemeanors on April 30.

    Sanchez said he was pushed into a state trooper as Texas Department of Public Safety officers drove back a pro-Palestinian protest line on campus, NBC affiliate KXAN-TV reported. Another officer immediately pulled him backward and threw him to the ground, arresting him. Sanchez was initially charged with criminal trespassing, but the charge was dismissed the following day.

    The American-Statesman reported that the law enforcement agency then launched a criminal investigation into the incident. A warrant for Sanchez’s arrest on the second-degree felony charge was issued on April 26, after additional witnesses — including the trooper who was said to have been hit — were identified and additional footage obtained.

    E.G. “Gerry” Morris, an attorney representing Sanchez, told the American-Statesman that they learned the felony charge had been dropped when Sanchez arrived at the jail on April 30 to turn himself in.

    KTBC reported that the Texas Department of Public Safety detective investigating the incident acknowledged that the allegations did not rise to a felony offense. A new warrant for Sanchez’s arrest was issued later that day on two misdemeanor counts: assault against a peace officer and impeding a public servant.

    Morris told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that Sanchez turned himself into custody on May 1 and was released on his own recognizance after being booked.

    “Mr. Sanchez was performing an important news gathering function during a chaotic event when he inadvertently bumped into a police officer. He did not commit a crime,” Morris wrote the Tracker via email. “We look forward to someone taking a unbiased look at the evidence and exonerating Mr. Sanchez. That may ultimately occur with a jury.”

    In a thread posted on the social media platform X, Society of Professional Journalists President Ashanti Blaize-Hopkins called the new misdemeanor charges “blatant retaliation and intimidation.”

    “TX DPS is trying to make an example out this photographer to scare other journalists from covering these highly publicized protests on campuses across TX,” Blaize-Hopkins wrote. “What they are doing is unconstitutional and just plain vindictive.”


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • TV reporter arrested at Northern California university protest; charges dropped

    TV journalist Adelmi Ruiz was arrested in the early hours of April 30, 2024, while covering student protests at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, her outlet KRCR-TV reported. The charges have since been dropped against Ruiz, who is a reporter for the Redding station and its Arcata-Eureka bureau, KAEF-TV.

    In an interview with KRCR-TV, Ruiz said she arrived shortly after 10 p.m. on April 29 to begin documenting the pro-Palestinian student encampment and protests.

    “I got b-roll, I was recording sound and I was trying to get interviews, but a lot of protesters were denying to be on camera,” Ruiz said. She told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she was reporting from behind the students’ barricades when police moved in.

    At approximately 2:30 a.m., the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and Cal Poly Humboldt Police Department led an operation to clear and secure multiple campus buildings, utilizing law enforcement officers from across the state, KRCR-TV reported.

    In Ruiz’s live recording from the scene, lines of officers can be seen advancing onto campus. While what appears to be a final line of university police officers assembles near where Ruiz is reporting, one of the officers calls out to tell her to come behind the police line and out of the way. Ruiz complies and seconds later is placed in flex cuffs and told she’s being detained.

    “Wait, I’m press,” Ruiz tells the officer, adding that she was there doing her job. The officer, who was from California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, replies, “OK, well, find a different job if it causes you to break the law.”

    Ruiz told the Tracker that she repeatedly identified herself as a journalist and showed the officers her press badge and jacket, but it didn’t make a difference.

    Ruiz said a work-issued cellphone fell from her pocket and was lost when officers removed her backpack, and that the bag and her personal cellphone remained in the deputies’ custody on campus while she was transported to the Humboldt County Correctional Facility.

    At the county jail, Ruiz said she received a thorough pat-down and had mug shots taken, but was not fingerprinted. According to the daily booking sheet, Ruiz was charged with trespassing, unlawful assembly, obstructing an officer and obstructing a business.

    Shortly after 5 a.m., Ruiz told the Tracker, Sheriff William Honsal pulled her aside to talk about how she had been caught up in the arrests. He apologized for what happened and said that he would finish processing her paperwork and that she’d be free to go.

    Ruiz was released at 5:25 a.m., according to law enforcement records, under a California statute that allows officers to release an arrestee when they believe there are insufficient grounds for pursuing the charges. When reached by phone, the Humboldt County Superior Court confirmed that there are no pending charges against Ruiz.

    Honsal drove her back to campus himself, Ruiz told the Tracker, and she was able to resume her reporting once her belongings were returned.

    “I am extremely thankful to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department for William Honsal, who was able to get everything resolved as quickly as possible,” Ruiz said.


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Disabled Charlie Chaplin in COURT over parliament protest for Gaza where cops NICKED him in his wheelchair

    I go on trial at Westminster Magistrate’s Court on May Day, having been nicked protesting the genocide in Gaza, blocking the entrance to parliament dressed as Charlie Chaplin.

    This is what I hope to tell the judge.

    Gaza protest: Why I did what I did

    I had been feeling increasingly distressed by the tragic events unfolding in Gaza. Israel, with one of the most sophisticated arsenals and surveillance systems in the world, had launched a sustained attack against one of the poorest and most densely populated places on Earth, indiscriminately firing on defenceless and innocent people, many of whom were children.

    Cutting off all water and electricity from 2 million people as a form of collective punishment. Using disturbing language to describe the Palestinians, such as likening them to, ‘human animals’. Ordering more than a million people, 80% of the population, to evacuate their homes within 24-hours before a barrage of near ceaseless bombing would begin.

    A million people on the move in one day. Too many with just the clothes on their backs and a couple of carrier bags. Ordered to walk to one spot, Rafah, nearly 20 miles from Gaza City, where apparently it would be safe.

    Hope and sanity seemed to be draining from the world, so I welcomed the ceasefire vote in parliament. But MPs voted 293 to 125 to reject the call. With the vast majority of MPs not even bothering to show up.

    The final straw for me was seeing a video on LBC, three days before my Gaza protest. Headed, ‘They’re bombing the bit they told people to go to,’ a reference to Rafah. They were actually bombing the safe haven.

    Amnesty International said that at least 95 civilians, nearly half of them children, had been killed in four rocket strikes.

    This was not Israel defending itself or trying to rescue hostages. LBC’s James O’Brien said it well, ‘You can’t call it anything other than a massacre now. And you can’t justify it, frankly, on any level, unless you are prepared to accept the untold killing of innocent people, in the spurious pursuit of the guilty,’ he said, spurring me into action.

    Mime activism: What I did

    I arrived at Westminster on Wednesday 6 December, around the time PMQs would have been finishing up. The busiest time for both Parliament and the media who report on it. I positioned my mobility scooter outside the Carriage Entrance. My plan was to attract a swarm of police officers and elevate my protest to news-worthy-ness, and I’d do it dressed as Charlie Chaplin, with the hat and tails and full make-up:

    For 18 years, I have inhabited a character that I have called Charlie X, a form of mime activism based on Chaplin’s the Little Tramp.

    I held aloft a placard showing a powerful image of a young Israeli boy, and Palestinian girl tending a sapling, that was growing amidst the rubble. I’d added the words ‘Peace’.. ‘Shalom’ in Hebrew, and ‘Salaam’ in Arabic:

    Disabled solidarity with music and art

    40% of Gaza’s population is aged 14 and below. Save The Children says there’s about 610,000 children, or one for every 2 adults. That’s tens of thousands of babies, tens of thousands of toddlers, tens of thousands of kids of primary school age. Children trying to survive devastating injuries sustained in airstrikes and sniper attacks, their stories painting a harrowing picture of the human consequences of Israel’s prolonged hateful indiscriminate onslaught.

    I’m disabled, but enjoy the support of family, friends and the NHS, so I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for a crippled toddler to survive the extreme trauma of terrible excruciating injuries? An estimated one thousand children in Gaza have become amputees since October 2023, have lost one or more limbs, often operated on without the use of anaesthetic, with no family, and no health service. A child who has to somehow survive their wounds on the streets of Gaza, with 24 bombed hospitals and 400 murdered healthcare professionals.

    On the back of my placard was a little music box that played ‘Hey Jude’, when you turned the handle, it chimes, ‘Take a sad song and make it better.’ There is nowhere sadder than Gaza right now.

    I also held a large sign showing a section of Picasso’s powerful painting ‘Guernica’, depicting the bombing of a Spanish market town in 1937. One of the first acts of genocide committed by the Nazis. Someone had filled it in with Palestine’s national colours, drawing a direct link to the bombing of Gaza:

    Never again: from the Blitz to the Nakba

    In one corner I had added in a Remembrance Day poppy to connect to Britain’s experience of war. My Great Grandparents were bombed out twice during the Second World War. The family archive has this newspaper clipping that says, ‘BOMBED OUT TWICE – Now couple celebrate diamond wedding’

    Their son, my grandfather, was in the fire service, stationed at Lewisham. He never spoke about his wartime experiences, but it must have been extremely tough. He was probably on duty in July ‘44, when Lewisham market, was bombed, destroying a Marks and Spencer’s, killing 59 people, and seriously injuring hundreds of others.

    My father, who was 7, fled London with hundreds of thousands of other kids. Somewhere between 1.5 and 2 million people fled the capital in near panic during this period.

    So, you see, the Blitz is very much part of my family history. It’s in my DNA. It’s partly why I think I have a natural affinity to the plight of the Palestinians today. Like them, my family knew what it felt like to be hated and hunted by a genocidal regime. Like them, my family knew what it felt like to face death at any moment, to lose everything, to have to flee their home, to run for their lives. In Britain we called it ‘The Blitz’. In Gaza they call it Nakba, which means – ‘Catastrophe’.

    Charlie Chaplin getting busted for Gaza

    I felt calm, empowered, exactly where I should be. I was soon approached by a police officer who told me to move, motioning towards the pavement beyond the cordon, saying I was free to carry out my protest ‘over there’. But ‘over there’ I was just another tourist attraction, and they would have no doubt already seen another and better Charlie Chaplin on the South Bank. My version was more ‘Modern Times’ than ‘do the box’. Defiant, political, prone to getting into trouble, wave a red flag, and recite the Speech from the Great Dictator at the top of my lungs. That has always been my version of the little tramp, and it was like the tourists expected to see Charlie Chaplin getting busted on their big day out in London. Hundreds of people from all around the world took pictures, and video, and many showed their approval:

    At one point, an officer asked me if I would be prepared to move out of the way if an ambulance needed to enter parliament in an emergency. I gestured ‘yes’.

    I don’t think that it can be properly said that I was blocking the gates. At no time was I aware of a vehicle needing to enter or leave Parliament. The double gates remained shut the whole time. The width of my scooter is 68cms, and judging by the Body Cam footage of my arrest, you can clearly see that there was still enough room for a vehicle to pass:

    So, you could describe my obstruction as more than minor, but less than major, well targeted in terms of the time and place, and designed to attract media and by extension government attention to an immediate and dire situation, to warn about the moral jeopardy that the UK will find itself in if it continues to turn a blind eye to genocide. And to British companies that are currently facilitating it:

    After my arrest

    In Charring Cross police station, at midnight, a detective came to my cell and offered me a caution to effectively forget the whole thing, and drive away. And after being in a cell for 9 hours, I have to say it was tempting. But I just thought of all those dead and injured Palestinian children being collectively punished for something they had nothing to do with. And so I thought, ‘No, let’s see this through.’ Let’s get my day in court and hopefully get a chance to say what I think needs to be said.

    On the 29th December, about a week before my plea hearing, South Africa reported Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for the crime of genocide, alleging that Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to a deliberate policy of extermination against the Palestinian people. And on 26 January, with reportedly 1% of Gaza’s population, some 25,700 people, mostly women and children then killed, the ICJ delivered its interim judgement, with15 of the 17 judges finding plausibility in South Africa’s case.

    I felt vindicated. On the right side of history. My little act of defiance justified. Happy that I hadn’t allowed myself and, by extension, my Charlie X character, to lose our humanity, our ability to act when it matters by taking a stand, and then to stand by those actions. I stand by my actions, my civil disobedience on the grounds of conscience, and am more than willing to vouch for the sincerity of my beliefs, and the world I want to live in, and accept any penalties imposed by law as a price worth paying.

    Featured image and additional images via Christine Ongsieg and videos via Paul

    By Neil Goodwin

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • These protest infiltrators were too Avi-ous


    This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘This Weaponization Is Meant to Shift Focus Away From Gaza’: CounterSpin interview with Sam on Students for Justice in Palestine

    Janine Jackson interviewed Sam, representative from National Students for Justice in Palestine, for the April 26, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

     

    Janine Jackson: There is a long and growing list of US college campuses where encampments and other forms of protests are going on, in efforts to get college administrations to divest their deep and powerful resources from weapons manufacturers, and other ways and means of enabling Israel’s war on Palestinians, assaults that have killed some 34,000 people just since the Hamas attack of October 7.

    One key group on campuses has been SJP, Students for Justice in Palestine. It’s not a new, hastily formed group; they’ve been around and on the ground for decades.

    We’re joined now by Sam, a representative of National Students for Justice in Palestine. Welcome to CounterSpin.

    Sam: Thank you for having me.

    Middle East Eye: 'Columbia is making us homeless': Students evicted for hosting Palestinian event

    Middle East Eye (4/8/24)

    JJ: I can only imagine what a time this is for you, but certainly a time when the need for your group is crystal clear. Individuals who want to speak up about the genocide in Palestine are helped by the knowledge that there are other people with them, behind them, but also that there are organizations that exist to support them and their right to speak out. I wonder, is that maybe especially true for students, whose rights exist on paper, but are not always acknowledged in reality?

    S: Yes and no. I think a lot of people definitely want to support students, because what we’re doing is very visible, and also I think people are more willing to assume good faith from 20-year-olds. At the same time, also, free speech on college campuses, especially private campuses, the First Amendment doesn’t apply. So if you’re on a campus, that means that it is sometimes harder to speak out, especially because we’re seeing students getting suspended, and when they get suspended, they get banned from campus, they get evicted from their student housing, sometimes they lose access to healthcare. And, basically, the schools control a lot more of students’ lives than any institution does for adults in the workforce, for example.

    JJ: Right. So what are you doing day to day? You’re at National SJP, and folks should know that there are hundreds of entities on campuses, but what are you doing? How do you see your job right now?

    S: SJP is a network of chapters that work together. It’s not like they’re branches, where we are giving them orders; they have full autonomy to do what they want within this network.

    So what we’re doing is what we’ve been trying to do for our entire existence, which is act as a hub, act as a resource center, provide resources to students, connect them with each other, offer advice, offer financial support when we can. One thing we’re really trying to do is pull everything together, basically present a consistent narrative to the public around this movement.

    NYT: Universities Face an Urgent Question: What Makes a Protest Antisemitic?

    New York Times (4/29/24)

    JJ: Speaking of narrative, the claim that anyone voicing anti-genocide or pro-Palestinian ideas is antisemitic is apparently convincing for some people whose view of the world comes through the TV or the newspaper. But it’s an idea that is blown apart by any visit to a student protest. It’s just not a true thing to say. And I wonder what you would say about narratives. It’s obviously about work, supporting people, but on the narrative space, what are you trying to shift?

    S: I mean, I’m Jewish. I’m fairly observant. I was at a Seder last night. When people say the pro-Palestinian movement is antisemitic, they’re lying. I’m just flat-out saying I think a lot of people, on some level, know that this isn’t about Jews. This isn’t about Judaism. It’s about the fact that Israel is committing a genocide in our people’s name. And if you support it, that is going to lead people to make a bunch of bad inferences about you, because you’re vocally supporting a genocide.

    This weaponization is meant to shift focus away from Gaza, away from Palestine, the people who are being massacred, the people whose bodies they found in a mass grave at a hospital yesterday. The point is to distract from the fact that there is no moral case to defend what Israel was doing. So the only thing that Zionists have going for them is just smears, attacking the movement, tone-policing, demanding we take stances that they’re never asked to take. No one ever asks pro-Israel protestors, “Do you condemn the Israeli government,” because Israel is seen as a legitimate entity.

    First of all, I want to clarify, this is about Palestine. I don’t want to get too far into talking about how the genocide, the Zionist backlash to the movement, affects me as a Jewish person, because I have a roof over my head. There’s not going to be a bomb dropping into my home.

    The narrative that we’re really trying to put out is this, what we’re calling the Popular University for Gaza, and it’s an overarching campaign narrative over this. Basically, the idea is that everything that’s happening is laying bare the fact that universities do not care about their students, or their staff, or their faculty, who are the people who make the university a university, and not just an investment firm. They care about their investments and profit and their reputation and, essentially, managing social change.

    Columbia University Press Blog: Jon N. Hale On The Mississippi Freedom Schools—An Ongoing Lesson in Justice Through Education

    Columbia University Press Blog (2/27/19)

    So what we’re doing is, as students, making encampments, taking up space on their campuses. And a crucial part of these encampments is the programming in them. It’s drawing on the traditions of Freedom Schools in the ’60s and in the South, and also the Popular University for Palestine, which was a movement, I think it’s still ongoing, in Palestine, basically educators teaching for liberation, teaching about the history of Palestinian figures, about resistance, about colonialism.

    But the idea is that students are inserting themselves, forcibly disrupting the university’s normal business; and threatening the university’s reputation is a big part of it, and just rejecting their legitimacy, establishing the Popular University for teaching, where scholarship is done for the benefit of the people, not for preserving hegemony.

    With this whole thing, we’re trying to emphasize, basically, that our universities, they have built all these reputations and all these super great things about them, but they don’t care about the people in them. So we’re going to take the structures that make up them, which are the people within them, and essentially turn them toward liberation, and against imperialism, against the ruling class.

    Reuters: Columbia threatens to suspend pro-Palestinian protesters after talks stall

    Reuters (4/29/24)

    JJ: Well, thank you very much. I want to say it’s very refreshing, and refreshing is not enough. A lot of folks are drawing inspiration from hearing people say, “The New York Times is saying I’m antisemitic. Maybe I should shut up, you know? Media are saying I’m disruptive. Oh, maybe I should quiet down.” I don’t see any evidence of shutting up or quieting down, despite, really, the full narrative power, along with other kinds of power, being brought against protesters. It doesn’t seem to be shutting people up.

    S: No, because that’s the thing, is students have had enough, students are perfectly willing now to risk suspension, risk expulsion, because they know that, essentially, the university’s prestige has been shattered. Even me, I’m currently in school, I’m a grad student. I’ve realized, so far I’ve been OK, but even if I did get expelled, or forced to drop out of my program, that’s a risk I’m willing to take. That’s a tiny sacrifice compared to what people in Palestine are going through. We are willing to sacrifice our futures in a system that increasingly doesn’t give us a future anyway. I think that’s another big part of it, is the feeling that, basically, even if you get a degree, you’re still going to be living precariously for a decade.

    And another thing is, also, that today’s college seniors graduated from high school in the spring of 2020. They never really had a normal college experience. Their freshman year was online, so they never developed the bonds with that university, traditional attachment to the university. And also, the universities, the way they handled Covid generally has been terrible, and just seeing them completely disregard their students during the pandemic, I think, has really radicalized a lot of students. Basically, they’re willing to defy the institution.

    This is first and foremost about Gaza. It’s about the genocide, it’s about Palestine. It’s not about standing with Columbia students. They have repeatedly asked: Don’t center them; center Gaza. And, basically, we reject the university system as the arbiter of our futures, the arbiter of right and wrong. And we’re going to make our own learning spaces until they listen to us and stop investing our tuition dollars in genocide.

    So yeah, free Palestine.

    JJ: We’ve been speaking with Sam from Students for Justice in Palestine, NationalSJP.org. Thank you so much, Sam, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

    S: Yeah, thanks for having me.

     

    The post ‘This Weaponization Is Meant to Shift Focus Away From Gaza’: <br></em><span class='not-on-index' style='color:#000000; font-size: 23px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 25px; font-family: 'Open Sans','sans-serif'; padding-bottom: -10px;'>CounterSpin interview with Sam on Students for Justice in Palestine appeared first on FAIR.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • Pro-Israel provocateur uses sabotage to get over 100 anti-genocide protesters arrested

    Police arrested over 100 pro-Palestine demonstrators at Northeastern university in Boston on 27 April. Students are protesting Israel’s occupation, apartheid and genocide against the Palestinians across US universities.

    The key reason Northeastern university gave for shutting down the encampment and having pro-Palestine protestors arrested was someone shouting “kill the jews”. A university statement reads:

    The use of virulent antisemitic slurs, including ‘Kill the Jews,’ crossed the line… We cannot tolerate this kind of hate on our campus. Earlier this morning the Northeastern University Police Department (NUPD) — in cooperation with local law enforcement partners — began clearing an unauthorized encampment on the university’s Boston campus

    But it turns out it was a pro-Israel agitator who shouted “kill the jews, anybody on board?”, as video footage shows. The Palestine solidarity protestors booed in response:

    Elsewhere and at Northeastern, universities are citing allegations of antisemitism to shut down pro-Palestine protests. President Joe Biden has also called the protests “antisemitic”.

    But Israel’s apologists have long weaponised antisemitism to silence criticism of Israel.

    Former Israeli government minister Shulamit Aloni has admitted:

    Well, it’s a trick we always use it… It’s very easy to blame people who criticise certain acts of the Israeli government as antisemitic and to bring up the Holocaust and the suffering of the Jewish people and that justifies everything we do to the Palestinians

    So people must identify real antisemitism before restricting the right to freedom of expression.

    Northeastern Jewish students condemned the arrests and one said:

    It was the closest I’ve felt to any community. It was really sad to see what was such a beautiful liberation zone completely destroyed

    Police, meanwhile, assured the pro-Israel counter protestors they wouldn’t be arrested.

    In response to challenges on the arrests, Vice President for Communications Renata Nyul said:

    The fact that the phrase ‘Kill the Jews’ was shouted on our campus is not in dispute. The Boston Globe, a trusted news organization, reported it as fact. There is also substantial video evidence. Any suggestion that repulsive antisemitic comments are sometimes acceptable depending on the context is reprehensible. That language has no place on any university campus.

    But the Boston Globe has now issued corrections and reported that it was a pro-Israel agitator who shouted the vile slur.

    Northeastern activists Huskies for a Free Paletine called out the university in a statement:

    After deploying campus police, city police, and state police on peaceful activist students, Northeastern Administration published an entirely false and fabricated narrative that members of our encampment engaged in hate speech early this morning

    The conduct of Northeastern administration has been deplorable as they continue to defame their students and take away from the main cause of Huskies for a Free Palestine: to divest from Israeli Apartheid and call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.

    Professor Mathew Noah Smith had joined the encampment on 25 April. He said:

    I hope Northeastern is not weaponising anti-semitism to justify arresting the protesting students… the students there… were clear in standing against all forms of hate and violence.

    Genocide and apartheid

    It’s not just the ongoing genocide where Israel has killed or injured one in fifty Gazan children. Israeli apartheid is also part of why students are protesting. As Amnesty International summarises:

    Israel imposes a system of oppression and domination against Palestinians across all areas under its control: in Israel and the (Occupied Palestinian Territories), and against Palestinian refugees, in order to benefit Jewish Israelis. This amounts to apartheid as prohibited in international law.

    Laws, policies and practices which are intended to maintain a cruel system of control over Palestinians, have left them fragmented geographically and politically, frequently impoverished, and in a constant state of fear and insecurity.

    Amnesty’s report shows how Israel uses military rule and a system of discrimination to oppress Palestinians.

    With such injustices in mind, there must be solidarity with the students and others protesting. We should opt for a constructive approach to peace in the Middle East.

    Featured image via Tori Bedford – X

    By James Wright

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Lib Dems are falling for Elbit System’s lies over its involvement in Israel’s genocide

    The following article is an editorial piece by Palestine Action

    Lib Dem-led Somerset Council has already backtracked on its motion to evict Israel weapons supplier and manufacturer Elbit Systems from its premises – thanks to the company lying about its involvement in Israel’s killing of Palestinians in Gaza.

    Palestine Action campaign to remove Elbit

    On Tuesday 23 April, councillors at Lib Dem-led Somerset Council voted to explore options for the removal of Elbit Systems from the property leased to them by the council. Somerset Council is the owner of the ‘Aztec West 600’ building which serves as Elbit’s headquarters in Bristol, from which they oversee their British operations.

    The motion followed Palestine Action’s campaign of direct action, which saw meetings disrupted, offices sprayed in blood-red paint, and blockaded, all to highlight the bloodshed with which Elbit’s profits – and their rent for the Aztec West building – are paid for with Palestinian blood.

    Somerset residents turned out en masse in support of the campaign, raising their voices against the Council’s relationship with Israel’s war machine, and highlighting the Council’s duty – under both domestic and international law – to evict Elbit, under the provisions of the Genocide Convention, European Convention on Human Rights and International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.

    Lib Dems backtrack

    Despite this legal duty and the democratic mandate for eviction, the Council’s Chief Executive reversed course only days later after legal action was threatened by Elbit itself. Elbit’s lawyers claimed that it is false to suggest that they are suppliers of weaponry to the Israeli government or military, prompting an apology from Somerset Council.

    These denials by Elbit must be challenged in the strongest possible terms. Palestine Action know well, and have seen it time and again in Courtrooms, that Elbit are careful to distance themselves from their ownership, their products, and the murderous results of their business, but the facts speak for themselves.

    Elbit Systems UK is wholly owned by its Israeli parent company, Elbit Systems Ltd.

    Just what does Elbit do?

    The latter, Israel’s largest weapons company, supplies an incredible amount of weaponry to the Israeli occupation forces. According to Israeli media, Elbit provides up to 80% of the Israeli military’s land based military equipment and 85% of its military drones.

    It supplies vast numbers of munitions and missiles – including the ‘Iron Sting’ recently developed and deployed for the first time in the 2023-2024 Genocide in Gaza, along with wide categories of surveillance technologies, targeting systems, and innumerate other armaments.

    This heinous company and its British operations are one-and-the-same. Despite the great lengths that Elbit UK has always taken to distance itself from its parent company, we know that Elbit UK is wholly owned by its Israeli counterpart.

    Elbit: clearly supplying Israel

    Elbit Ltd CEO Bezhalal Machlis, who is on the board of Elbit UK, said in the company’s latest investor conference that

    Of course they are all Elbit’s people it doesn’t matter if the company in England is called Elbit UK and the British CEO is in England… it’s 100% owned by Elbit… It’s not a different company, it’s a part of Elbit and when you report on manpower we have 20k employees, 13k in Israel and 7k overseas.

    He also noted:

    we are a major supplier of armaments to many countries in the world, first and foremost to the IDF, and we are making great efforts to supply the needs of the IDF.

    The face that Elbit UK puts out, versus that of Elbit Israel, are therefore markedly different – Elbit Israel is proud of this relationship to Israel’s military, but Elbit UK must attempt to deny it, because it knows that Israel’s genocide in Gaza is far less popular in Britain than in Israel.

    And yet, when Israeli Ambassador to Britain Tzipi Hotzelvy made an appearance in July 2023 to Elbit’s new facility in Bristol, she directly praised Elbit UK as an ‘Israeli company’, and showed off a number of Elbit products known to be used by the Israeli armed forces, including Torch-X command and control technologies, radio systems, and night vision goggles.

    Regardless of the parent company’s operations, we can also say that, domestically, Elbit Systems UK has long promoted falsehoods about its supplies to Israel.

    Lie after lie – and the Lib Dems believe them

    They deny that their company provides weapons to Israel, but we know that Elbit UK subsidiaries have a non-disclosure agreement in place to bar discussion of their exports made “for military end use by the State of Israel”.

    And these exports are significant: according to the CAAT database, Elbit UK and its subsidiaries have applied for and been granted at least 95 weapons-export licenses to Israel since 2008, for parts including targeting systems and drone components, the latter being made most recently in 2023.

    Freedom of Information requests identify a further 75 licenses not listed on the CAAT database, including 11 Direct Licenses in an ‘Extant’ state as-of March 2024. Whether they are supplied directly to the Israeli military, or to the parent company and then to the Israeli military, makes no difference – but Elbit UK appear to rely on the indirect supply chain, and the non-disclosure agreements in place, to make their denials.

    Exporting killing machines for Israel

    Take, for instance, their Kent-based subsidiary Instro Precision. Instro has been a long-time supplier of the Israeli military regime, with seven extant licenses alongside dozens of expired military export licenses representing the depth of their collaboration with the Israeli occupation.

    These licenses include ML5b surveillance/target acquisition systems – namely the XACT th64 sights, which Instro have sold in quantities of thousands to Israel, likely outfitting their sniper regiments manning the Gaza border – along with components for military ground vehicles (ML6a), and other military electronic equipment (ML11).

    Elbit Systems has numerous such subsidiaries in Britain – Instro Precision, UAV Engines, and UAV Tactical Systems – and the Bristol site is a logistical centre which serves to co-ordinate these businesses’ operations and business and export activity.

    On top of this, the ownership structure makes clear that all Elbit UK profits are returned to Elbit Israel. Abhorrently, too, Elbit UK’s procurement relationship with the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) is, itself, party to this genocide. Take Elbit’s subsidiary UAV Tactical Systems, Leicester.

    Not only does this factory make significant exports of drone parts to Israel, but the drone it manufactures for the MOD is based entirely upon the Israeli’s Hermes drone – meaning that it repackages its genocidal devices for the British market.

    Lib Dems: you have a legal and moral duty to evict Elbit

    All of this speaks directly to the legal duty that Somerset Council has, its obligation to prevent genocide and its duties not to be complicit in the commission or facilitation of war crimes in Gaza. Elbit’s track record of lying about its exports, its attempts to distance itself from the Israeli occupation, and its threats of legal action, do not change the fact that it is, at its core, a criminal, genocidal enterprise.

    Somerset Council must obey international and domestic law, and follow the mandate set forth by the eviction motion, and force the company out of Aztec West.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Mass Protest Against Georgia’s Proposed ‘Foreign Agents’ Law


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Biden hails ‘press freedom, democracy’ but ignores Gaza media death toll of 142

    Pacific Media Watch

    US President Joe Biden has spoken at the annual White House Correspondents’ dinner in Washington in spite of protests over alleged “complicity” of media about Israel’s war on Gaza, offering a toast to “press freedom and democracy” but ignoring the death toll of Palestinian journalists.

    Demonstrators targeted the Washington Hilton hotel which hosted the dinner, denouncing the Biden administration’s handling of the war and urging guests — especially media — to boycott the event.

    Media freedom watchdogs have cited varying death toll figures for Palestinian journalists killed since October 7 although Al Jazeera network news today reported 142 dead — more than double the number of journalists killed in each of the Second World War and the Vietnam War.

    “It’s astonishing. We’ve never seen a White House correspondents’ dinner like this,” reported Al Jazeera’s Washington correspondent Shihab Rattansi.

    “The President is here to speak while being warmly applauded by the national US press core.

    “But these VIPs are all dressed up in the evening finery, and they have to run the gauntlet of hundreds of protesters out here who are shouting, ‘Shame on you’.

    “‘Shame on you’ for breaking bread when there are [142] journalists dead as a result of, as far as they say, Biden’s complicity in their murder.”

    Code Pink flag protest
    Members of the feminist organisation Code Pink dropped a huge Palestinian flag from a top floor window of the Washington Hilton hotel.

    The group said members involved in the action managed “to get out quickly and without arrest”.

    The protesters were gathered outside the hotel to express solidarity with the dozens of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza.

    Protest outside Washington Hilton Hotel
    The protest outside the White House correspondents’ dinner hotel. Image: Anatolu video screenshot APR

    More than two dozen Palestinian journalists had called for a boycott of the dinner, writing an open letter urging their American colleagues not to attend.

    “You have a unique responsibility to speak truth to power and uphold journalistic integrity,” said the letter from the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.

    “It is unacceptable to stay silent out of fear or professional concern while journalists in Gaza continue to be detained, tortured, and killed for doing our jobs.”

    ‘It hurts our souls’
    Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary was one of the signatories of the letter calling for the boycott.

    She spoke to the network from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, saying she did not “have the words” to describe what she had been going through.

    “This isn’t something that has been ending. It has been continuous every single day for more than 200 days.

    “We have been killed, displaced and homeless, and we’re not only reporting on this, but we’re also living it with every single detail.

    Gaza journalist Hind Khoudary . . . Palestinian
    Gaza journalist Hind Khoudary . . . Palestinian press plea to boycott the White House dinner. Image: @Hind_Gaza

    “We’re living this war in all aspects of life. We have not seen our families as journalists. We have not been able to eat well. We have been dehydrated.

    “We have been reporting in one of the harshest conditions any reporter can go through despite losing a lot of colleagues, and it hurts our souls and our hearts every single day.

    “We have been constantly targeted by the Israeli air strikes and shelling.

    “All of these daily things we have been living as journalists are overwhelming [and] exhausting, but we still continue because there have been at least 100 Palestinian journalists whom I personally know that have been killed since October 7.

    “If they were here today with us, they would be reporting, and they would be raising the voice of the voiceless Palestinians.”

    Protesters pose as Palestinian media casualties in Gaza
    Protesters pose as Palestinian media casualties in Gaza surrounded by blue press protective jackets. The death toll of Gaza journalists since October 7 is 142. Image: Anatolu video screenshot APR


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Sam on Students for Justice in Palestine, Sally Dworak-Fisher on Delivery Workers

     

    Palestinian flag at Columbia encampment

    Columbia encampment (CC photo: Pamela Drew)

    This week on CounterSpin: Lots of college students, it would appear, think that learning about the world means not just gaining knowledge, but acting on it. Yale students went on a hunger strike, students at Washington University in St. Louis disrupted admitted students day, students and faculty are expressing outrage at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism (emphasis added) canceling their valedictorian’s commencement speech out of professed concerns for “safety.” A Vanderbilt student is on TikTok noting that their chancellor has run away from offers to engage them, despite his claim to the New York Times that it’s protestors who are “not interested in dialogue”—and Columbia University students have set up an encampment seen around the world, holding steady as we record April 25, despite the college siccing the NYPD on them.

    Campuses across the country—Rutgers, MIT, Ohio State, Boston University, Emerson, Tufts, and on and on—are erupting in protest over their institutions’ material support for Israel’s war on Palestinians, and for the companies making the weapons. And the colleges’ official responses are gutting the notion that elite higher education entails respect for the free expression of ideas. Students for Justice in Palestine is working with many of these students. We’ll hear from Sam from National SJP about unfolding events.

     

    Delivery worker in Manhattan's East Village

    (CC photo: Edenpictures)

    Also on the show: App-based companies, including Uber and DoorDash, are adding new service fees, and telling customers they have to, because of new rules calling on them to improve wages and conditions for workers. The rather transparent hope is that, with a lift from lazy media, happy to typey-type about the worry of more expensive coffee, folks will get mad and blame those greedy…bicycle deliverers. We asked Sally Dworak-Fisher, senior staff attorney at National Employment Law Project, to break that story down.

     

    Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at the TikTok ban.

     

    The post Sam on Students for Justice in Palestine, Sally Dworak-Fisher on Delivery Workers appeared first on FAIR.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • University protests against Israel’s genocidal assault are spreading like wildfire

    Israel’s genocidal campaign against the people of Palestine sparked protests across the world – and has now taken hold at universities.

    Universities: protests over Israel’s genocide are spreading

    After police were sent in to break up the Columbia University encampment for Palestine, dozens of other universities began demonstrations in solidarity.

    American police have arrested around 550 people including professors for exercising their right to peaceful protest.

    The International Court of Justice almost unanimously found it “plausible” that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Israel has killed over 14,500 children, destroyed 70% of Gazan homes and displaced 75% of the population.

    Yet the police are using force to crackdown on protests against Israel’s conduct. Such as the treatment of Emory university economics professor Caroline Fohlin in Georgia:

    Also at Emory, video footage shows police using more questionable force against protesters. The University’s student newspaper additionally reported that police are using tear gas:

    The American universities protesting also include New York, Yale, Austin Texas, Southern California, Harvard, Brown, Berkeley and Pittsburgh.

    As well as calls for a permanent ceasefire and an end to arms sales to Israel, protestors’ demands also include that their respective universities cut ties with individuals and companies connected to Israel.

    There were scenes at UT Austin:

    The student protests go beyond the US. Unis in France and the UK are also conducting demonstrations, as are Greek students.

    Gaza being destroyed

    Meanwhile in Palestine, Israel has destroyed all or part of Gaza’s 12 universities. Israel has also killed 94 professors since 7 October. And as Euro-Med monitor reported:

    The targeted academics studied and taught across a variety of academic disciplines, and many of their ideas served as cornerstones of academic research in the Gaza Strip’s universities. The rights group added that given the systematic and widespread destruction by Israeli forces of cultural buildings, including institutions of great historical significance, it is highly likely that Israel is intentionally targeting every aspect of life in Gaza.

    Israel’s finance minister recently made yet another genocidal statement from Israeli state authorities. He called for the “complete destruction” of the Gaza strip, rather than negotiation.

    The comment follows at least 500 genocidal statements from Israelis who command authority.

    So the university protests are certainly welcome in the face of a historic crime against humanity. Let’s hope they continue to spread.

    Featured image via CNN-News18 – YouTube

    By James Wright

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Cumbrian Just Stop Oil Supporters plaster climate criminal MP Mark Jenkinson’s office

    Just Stop Oil supporters have targeted the offices of Conservative MP Mark Jenkinson in Maryport, Cumbria. Beginning at 7:35am on Friday 26 April, four individuals plastered his office with posters that read:

    Mark Jenkinson is telling giant porkies about coal & jobs. He just wants to please his Tory billionaire chums. The rich will get richer, the jobs won’t last & no-one needs the coal…

    Just Stop Oil: targetting climate criminal Jenkins

    Cumbrians have previously staged disruptive action at Mark Jenkinson’s offices for his support of the Cumbrian Coal mine which received government approval in 2022.

    The government’s own climate adviser Lord Deben has described the project as “indefensible” warning that its approval would damage the UK’s leadership on the climate crisis, and “create another example of Britain saying one thing and doing another”.

    A group of around five more Just Stop Oil supporters joined the action takers outside the office, putting up ‘Crime Scene’ tape and holding up signs saying ‘PEOPLE vs COAL’:

    Just Stop Oil Cumbria

    Mark Jenkinson arrived at 8:15am and began remonstrating with the action takers. Police officers from Cumbria Constabulary arrived on the scene shortly afterwards.

    One of those taking action was Alison Parker, a constituent of Jenkinson’s from Aspatria. She said:

    I am sick of Mark Jenkinson telling constituents like me that the coal mine is needed by the steel industry, and that it will be carbon neutral. We deserve to be told the truth. I’m really worried about the impact of the coal mine on the climate and how it will encourage other countries to build more mines too.

    Enough is enough

    The action takers presented an open letter to Mark Jenkinson’s staff and police officers that details Mark Jenkinson’s actions that breach Article 30.2(b) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, calling for his arrest. It also cites:

    a group of Swiss women just won a landmark case against their government’s climate policies. This week, children in South Korea are in court accusing their government of failing to protect them.

    Attached to the letter was a detailed evidence dossier of Mark Jenkinsons’ actions which have lead to the supporters declaring:

    In his climate denial, support for the ongoing use of fossil fuels and vocal support for the Cumbrian coalmine, Jenkinson is neither fulfilling his duty to his constituents, nor protecting local communities. Given evidence of climate breakdown all over the world, anyone who supports fossil fuel projects is complicit in crimes against humanity.

    Another of those taking action was Colin Benton, a software engineer from Maryport. He said:

    I’m from Maryport, and Mark Jenkinson is harming our town. He works for himself first, coal money second, and the people come last. Why won’t he protect our community? We’re sick of being lied to, we’re sick of crumbling public services, and we’re sick of corrupt leaders.

    Featured image and additional images via Just Stop Oil

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Photographer arrested while filming pro-Palestinian protest at University of Texas

    A photographer with television station KTBC in Austin was thrown to the ground and arrested by Texas Department of Public Safety officers on April 24, 2024, while filming a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Texas. The photographer, who was not named by the station, was charged with criminal trespassing and released the next day.

    As seen in video footage taken by the photographer, who was livestreaming the student protest, and in a report by KTBC, the journalist was filming members of law enforcement as they moved back the protest line when he was either pushed or fell into an officer.

    The photographer was then pulled backward onto the ground by an officer, who can be heard shouting at him to “Get on the ground,” to which the journalist replied, “I was moving.” He was then placed in handcuffs and escorted to a police car outside the protest zone.

    His video camera continued to film the events, as it was picked up and carried by an unidentified person who walked alongside the photographer and the police until the livestream was cut off.

    In a video posted on the social platform X by Nabil Remadna, a reporter with Austin station KXAN-TV, the photographer identifies himself only as “Carlos” and says, “They were pushing me and they said I hit an officer. I didn’t hit an officer. They were pushing.” He added, “I told them I was the press.”

    KTBC said the photographer was booked at Travis County jail and charged with criminal trespassing. He was released the following morning, it added.

    Nearly 60 people were arrested during the April 24 protest, in which students walked out of classes to demand that the university divest from companies supplying weapons to Israel used in its war in Gaza.

    In a statement on X, the Texas Department of Public Safety said it responded to the University of Texas campus in Austin “at the request of the University and at the direction of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, in order to prevent any unlawful assembly and to support UT Police in maintaining the peace by arresting anyone engaging in any sort of criminal activity, including criminal trespass."

    The Texas Department of Public Safety and KTBC didn’t respond to requests for additional information about the incident, including the photographer’s full name and details of the charges.


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Independent photojournalist to stand trial on charges from NYC protest arrest

    Independent photojournalist Javier Soriano was arrested while covering a pro-Palestinian protest in New York City on March 30, 2024, according to social media posts and court records reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

    In a post on social media, Soriano wrote that he was arrested by New York Police Department officers while covering a “Land Day” march from Manhattan’s City Hall Park to Union Square to commemorate a deadly 1976 protest in Israel over the seizure of Palestinian land.

    The photojournalist could clearly be seen wearing press credentials at the time of his arrest in a photo captured by Neil Constantine, a photojournalist for the monthly newspaper The Indypendent.

    Soriano was charged with walking in the roadway, according to court records. He told the Tracker that he opted to move forward with a trial during his initial appearance hearing on April 18, but declined to comment further. His bench trial is scheduled for May 2.


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Hundreds Arrested: Students Across U.S. Protest for Palestine as Campus Crackdown Intensifies


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Texas police detain, charge FOX 7 Austin journalist covering pro-Palestinian protest

    New York, April 25, 2024 — Texas authorities should immediately drop all charges against a FOX 7 Austin journalist detained while covering a pro-Palestinian protest and take steps to ensure journalists can do their jobs safely and without interference, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.

    Law enforcement officers arrested a FOX 7 Austin photographer — identified only by his first name, Carlos — covering a pro-Palestinian protest on the University of Texas at Austin campus on Wednesday alongside more than 30 other people, according to news reports and the outlet’s coverage.

    Footage on social media showed officers pushing the journalist, who was carrying a camera, to the ground. FOX 7 said he was then detained and charged with criminal trespassing.

    “We are very concerned by the violent arrest of a FOX 7 Austin journalist who was simply doing his job and covering matters of public interest,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director, in New York. “Authorities should immediately drop all charges against the photographer and ensure that law enforcement officers respect journalists and allow them to report safely and without interference.”

    CPJ’s email to the Austin police public information office requesting comment did not immediately receive a response.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.