Student protests in support of Palestine and in support of Gaza continue in American and Australian universities despite warnings issued by administrations to their participants, while the Supreme Court in London ruled on Tuesday that Britain had illegally granted the police broader powers to impose restrictions on peaceful protests.
Yale University in the US province of Connecticut witnessed a protest during a graduation ceremony in which 150 students left the ceremony in solidarity with Palestine, while students at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, set up a camping camp to express their solidarity with Gaza and Palestine.
For his part, university president John Frey warned in a statement of the continuation of student protests, claiming that they negatively affect the conduct of life on campus, noting that they had taken “all necessary measures” to remove the tents of the student demonstrators, calling on them to leave the place.
In addition, students at Wesleyan University in Connecticut announced that they had reached an agreement with the university administration to suspend its investments in companies cooperating with Israel.
Australian universities
In Australia, students at the University of Melbourne in the province of Victoria continue their protests for the seventh day in a row, at a time when police arrested two students during a demonstration in solidarity with Palestine at the University of Queensland, according to Anadolu Agency.
While the Australian police warned of what it called students resorting to violence against security personnel, while covering their faces, the provincial Prime Minister, Jacinta Allan, expressed dissatisfaction with what she described as the irresponsible actions of students, warning students of the consequences of not returning to school.
For its part, the university administration called on the students of its Arts West College to remove the tents they had set up to demonstrate, and warned them of expulsion if they did not respond to this.
Since last April, international universities, including American, Canadian, British, French, and Indian universities, have witnessed protests denouncing the Israeli war on Gaza, and demanding that university administrations stop their academic cooperation with their Israeli counterparts.
The protesters, male and female students and professors, also demand that their universities withdraw their investments from companies that support the occupation of Palestinian territories and arm the Israeli army. The protests continue despite some universities’ use of security forces and the arrest of protesters.
“illegal”
On the other hand, the Supreme Court in London ruled on Tuesday that Britain had illegally granted the police broader powers to impose restrictions on peaceful protests that cause unrest “more than Slight” to the public, according to what Reuters reported.
Civil rights organization Liberty has filed a lawsuit against the government over changes it made last year to public order laws, which it says gave police almost unlimited powers to suppress protests.
Judges David Benn and Timothy Kerr ruled in favor of the organization today, finding that the regulations granting the new powers were “unlawful”.
This comes as the Israeli occupation army continues its war on Gaza since the seventh of last October, leaving tens of thousands of martyrs, wounded and missing amid a humanitarian situation described as catastrophic, a worsening famine looming over the besieged Strip, and anger rising in many countries of the world.