In pictures: Palestine solidarity protests spread across the world

The "Student Spring" protests on US campuses, the biggest since the Vietnam demonstrations in the 1960s and 1970s, have inspired universities from Australia to Mexico to the United Kingdom to protest in solidarity with Palestine.



AFP

Members of the Australian Palestinian community shout slogans at the Palestinian Protest Campsite at University of Sydney in Sydney on May 3, 2024. / Photo: AFP

Thousands of students protesting Israel's war in Gaza rallied at some of the top universities worldwide demanding divest from companies with ties to Israel, in a movement inspired by the student protests in several US campuses.

Hundreds of people protesting Israel's war on Gaza set up an encampment last week outside the sandstone main hall at University of Sydney, one of Australia's largest tertiary institutions.

Similar camps have sprung up at universities in Melbourne, Canberra and other Australian cities.

Unlike in the US, where police have forcibly removed scores of defiant antiwar protesters at several colleges, demonstration sites in Australia have been peaceful with scant police presence.



AFP

Members of the Australian Palestinian community gather at the Palestinian Protest Campsite at University of Sydney in Sydney on May 3, 2024.


In Canada, students erected antiwar camps across some of the largest universities, including the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia and the University of Ottawa, demanding they divest from groups with ties to Israel.



AFP

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators wave flags and hold up smartphones outside the fenced in area of an encampment on the University of Toronto campus on May 2, 2024, in Toronto, Canada.


In Mexico, dozens of pro-Palestinian students from the country's largest university camped out in solidarity as well.



AFP

Pro-Palestinian students and activists face police officers after protesters were evicted from the library on campus earlier in the day at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon on May 2, 2024.


Mounting flags and chanting "Long live free Palestine," the protesters set up tents in front of the National Autonomous University of Mexico's (UNAM) head office in Mexico City.


The students called on the Mexican government to break diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel.



AFP

Activists from the Interuniversity and Popular Assembly in Solidarity with the People of Palestine erect tents in front of the rectory building of the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)


In Türkiye, a group at Bogazici University's South Square held a rally in support of Palestine, carrying balloons and signs in Turkish, English, and Arabic.

Students condemned Israel's attacks in Palestine despite international outcry, pledging solidarity with Palestinian people and denouncing the atrocities in Gaza with US support.

Students also called for an end to the humanitarian crisis and justice for the victims, urging intervention to stop the crimes against humanity committed by the Zionist regime.



AA

Students from Bogazici University Islamic Studies Club (BISAK) gather to organise a solidarity demonstration for Pro-Palestinian encampment in the US universities such as Columbia University, in Istanbul.


Students from the universities Warwick, York, Leeds, Newcastle, Bristol and Sheffield in the United Kingdom are set to hold action at the campuses against administration of universities and British government in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Students will finalise demands and publish them at the Bristol University while they hold protest/rally outside the senate of the University.



REUTERS

People gather during a protest in support of Palestinians, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, at Newcastle University, in Newcastle, Britain.


Earlier this week, hundreds of students gathered outside the University of Tehran to express support for students in the US protesting against the Israeli war on Gaza.


Shouting slogans against Israel and the US, protesters condemned police action against students at various US universities in recent days, including Columbia University.



OTHERS

Students at Amirkabir University of Technology in the Iranian capital of Tehran are seen in a pro-Palestine rally on April 28, 2024.


In France, protesters supporting Palestine gathered at Paris' Sorbonne University, chanting "Free Palestine" and setting up tents.



AFP

Students display a giant Palestinian flag as they take part in a rally in support of Palestinians at the Sorbonne University in Paris on April 29, 2024.


The Sorbonne protest was peaceful, with students calling for the university to condemn Israel.

Police secured the area, and several French politicians, including Mathilde Panot, encouraged support for the protest.

Paris' Sciences Po university was closed for the day on Friday after a debate between the institute's leadership and students on the war in Gaza failed to ease tensions, prompting protesters to occupy it overnight.

Pro-Palestinian students camp out at Mexico’s largest university

By

 AFP

Dozens of pro-Palestinian students from Mexico’s largest university camped out Thursday in solidarity with similar protests that have swept colleges in the United States. 

Mounting flags and chanting “Long live free Palestine,” the protesters set up tents in front of the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s (UNAM) head office in Mexico City.

The students called on the Mexican government to break diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel. 

“We are here to support Palestine, the people who are in Palestine, and the student camps in the United States,” said Valentino Pino, a 19-year-old philosophy student.

Jimena Rosas, 21, said she hoped the protest would have a domino effect and spread to other universities in the country. 

“Once people see that UNAM is beginning to mobilize, other universities should start as well,” she said.

Dozens of universities in the United States have seen pro-Palestinian demonstrations in recent weeks, leading to clashes with police and counter-protests.

The Gaza war started when Hamas militants staged an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 that left around 1,170 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 34,500 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Pro-Palestinian protesters set up encampments at universities in Australia

University of Sydney vice chancellor Mark Scott said there was space for both groups of protesters.


Protesting students occupy an area of the quadrangle at the University of Sydney (Rick Rycroft/AP) (Rick Rycroft/AP)

By Associated Press Reporter

May 03, 2024 

Pro-Palestinian protesters are camping on university campuses across Australia, with some scuffling with pro-Israel protesters in Sydney – mirroring similar events in the United States.

Students have set up encampments at universities in major Australian cities over the last two weeks to protest over Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

The students are demanding that universities sever all academic ties with Israel and cut off research partnerships with arms manufacturers   

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Protesting students occupy an area of the quadrangle at the University of Sydney (Rick Rycroft/AP) (Rick Rycroft/AP)

No arrests were made, as the violence seen on some American campuses has not occurred in Australia.

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters on Friday met a counter-protest supporting Israel at the University of Sydney, Australia’s oldest univrsity.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported a scuffle between the groups.

Supporters of both sides later backed down because of a heavy security presence.

University of Sydney vice chancellor Mark Scott said there was space for both groups of protesters.

“They may strongly disagree with the matters that have been discussed. … We can host that conversation and we should be able to do that in a non-threatening way,” he told ABC.

Mr Scott said not all of the protesters were students, and that some might not be committed to peaceful and productive engagement.

“We are working with security and police,” he said.

Pro-Palestine protestors flood

Australian universities, set up

encampments

ByHT News Desk
May 03, 2024 

Over the past two weeks, students across major Australian cities have established protest encampments on university campuses.

Australian university campuses witnessed pro-Palestinian protests on Friday. In Sydney, tensions escalated as scuffles broke out between the pro-Palestinian protesters and pro-Israel counter-protesters. These demonstrations mirrored similar protests unfolding on campuses across the United States.

Members of the Australian Palestinian community shout slogans at the Palestinian Protest Campsite at University of Sydney. (AFP)

Over the past two weeks, students across major Australian cities have established protest encampments on university campuses. Their demonstrations are in response to Israel's recent military offensive in Gaza. The student protesters are calling for their universities to cut all academic ties with Israel and terminate research collaborations with arms manufacturers. This move aims to exert pressure on Israel through academic and research channels in light of the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

At the University of Sydney, Australia's oldest institution, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered on Friday, facing a counter-protest in support of Israel. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported a scuffle between the two groups, however no arrests were made. This indicates a less volatile atmosphere than scenes unfolding across certain campuses in the US.

Similar protest camps have been set up in Melbourne, Canberra and other Australian cities.

Due to heavy security presence, the protestors from both sides backed down in Sydney.

Addressing the situation, University of Sydney Vice Chancellor Mark Scott affirmed that there was space for both groups to express their views peacefully on the university grounds.

“They may strongly disagree with the matters that have been discussed. ... We can host that conversation and we should be able to do that in a non-threatening way,” he said to ABC.

Read Here: Parveen Shaikh, Mumbai school head ousted for pro-Palestine stance, gets parents' support

Scott added that not all the protestors were university students and expressed concerns that some of the individuals involved might not be genuinely committed to peaceful and productive engagement on the issue.

“We are working with security and police,” he said.

Despite being a longstanding ally of Israel, Australia has grown increasingly critical of Israel's conduct in the conflict, especially after an Australian aid worker was killed in an Israeli attack last month.

At the demonstrations, protesters voiced their dissatisfaction with the Australian government's efforts, claiming it has not done enough to push for peace in the region. They led chants against Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his administration, expressing their discontent with the government's response to the ongoing crisis, Reuters reported.

Sciences Po uni closes main Paris site over Gaza protest

TEHRAN, May 03 (MNA) – France's prestigious Sciences Po University said it would close its main Paris site on Friday due to a fresh occupation of buildings by dozens of protesting pro-Palestinian students.

In a message sent to staff on Thursday evening, its management said the buildings in central Paris "will remain closed tomorrow, Friday, May 3. We ask you to continue to work from home".

According to Agence France-Presse, a committee of pro-Palestinian students earlier Thursday announced a "peaceful sit-in" at Sciences Po and said six students were starting a hunger strike "in solidarity with Palestinian victims" in war-torn Gaza.

Echoing tense demonstrations rocking many top US universities, students at Sciences Po have staged a series of protests, with some furious over the Gaza war and ensuing humanitarian crisis in the besieged Palestinian territory of Gaza.

The Paris regional authority's right-wing head Valerie Pecresse temporarily suspended funding to Sciences Po earlier this week over the protests, condemning what she claimed "a minority of radicalised people calling for anti-Semitic hatred".

Israel waged a genocidal war on the besieged Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas Resistance group carried out a historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

At least 34,596 Palestinians have been killed and 77,816 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7.

A member of the student committee who identified himself only as Hicham said the hunger strikes would continue until the university's board voted on holding an investigation into its partnerships with Israeli universities.

SD/PR

Taking cues from students, UCLA faculty members join the pro-Palestinian protests

At Columbia, some faculty members delivered food and water, incorporated the protests into their academic lessons, participated in panel discussions and stood guard outside the perimeter to make it harder for the authorities to evict the students

Anemona Hartocollis 

Published 03.05.24


A pro-Palestinian protest camp set up on Sproul Plaza at the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, Calif., on Wednesday, May 1, 2024.(Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

This week, some faculty members at the University of California, Los Angeles, had an emergency call with students who were active in the pro-Palestinian protests.

“We just got a really clear message from them: ‘We feel unsafe, and we’d like your help in fixing this,” recalled Graeme Blair, an associate professor of political science.

In that moment, several dozen faculty activists volunteered to join the students in shifts around the clock at their encampment on campus.

And in the dark hours of Thursday morning, as the police cracked down on the protests, those faculty members were linking arms with students, allowing themselves to be arrested.

It was one of the clearest instances of a little-noted fact of the student demonstrations against the war in the Gaza Strip — that a small fraction of faculty members at UCLA, Columbia and other universities have provided logistical and emotional support to the protesters.

Some faculty members have formal ties to Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, the counterpart of Students for Justice in Palestine, a decentralized national network of pro-Palestinian groups.

Others are not necessarily sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but see a moral obligation to protect the free speech and the welfare of their students, who are facing some of the biggest disruptions to their educational lives since the pandemic.

“It’s a breach of trust that they would call the police on our students,” said Stephanie McCurry, a history professor at Columbia University, who watched over the perimeter of the encampment before the last police sweep on Tuesday morning.

The issue has torn apart the faculties at these universities. More than a few say the activist professors are romanticizing the demonstrations, which have thrown campuses into chaos.

“It’s a sad way to end the semester,” said James Applegate, an astronomy professor at Columbia University.

At Columbia, some faculty members had shown their support for the students — if not necessarily for their message — by visiting the encampment before it was swept away by police. They delivered food and water, incorporated the protests into their academic lessons, participated in panel discussions and stood guard outside the perimeter to make it harder for the authorities to evict the students.

The faculty members did not necessarily agree with the views of the students on Gaza, said Camille Robcis, a history professor at Columbia. But, she said, “I believe in their right to protest more than anything.”

Over the last few chaotic days, they had communicated with one another through Listservs and on the encrypted Signal app, signing up for time slots to appear on campus.

In a counterweight, pro-Israel faculty members and students formed their own WhatsApp and email support groups.

“Those have been really helpful,” said Carol Ewing Garber, a professor of applied physiology at Teachers College, an affiliate of Columbia. “They actually brought people together who had never met before. It was a silver lining.”

Bruce Robbins, an English professor at Columbia, is among those who are more devoted to the Palestinian cause, a member of Columbia’s chapter of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine.

He brought one of his classes to the tents as part of a course studying atrocities.

“It was one of the things that faculty who supported the encampment did,” he said, “was take their classes inside the encampment.”

Two of his students, who he believes were former members of the Israeli military, did not show up for that lesson.

“I was planning on making it as comfortable as I could,” he said. “But I think the feeling in the class was not running in their favor, and that may be why they didn’t show up.”

At one point, students asked the faculty members to help protect them, Robbins said. “We were described as ‘de-escalators.’”

Several faculty members put on orange safety vests, he said, and got “a quick training on how not to get into a fight — if they push past us, let them push past us.”

“I played football,” he said. “It was not my instinct to de-escalate. But that’s what I was there to do.”

Applegate, the astronomy professor, thought the faculty’s participation in the campus protests was part of a romanticization of the Vietnam-era anti-war protests.

“These guys are trying to relive 1968,” he said, referring to a violent confrontation with the police that shook Columbia back then. “I don’t think they have any intention of having a sensible conversation with anybody.”

At UCLA, members of Faculty for Justice in Palestine helped negotiate with the administration, Blair said.

The faculty members even hired a professional to train them in de-escalating physical or verbal conflict, he said, “with the idea that the faculty could help play this role.”

Blair also called on his sister, Susannah Blair, an adjunct lecturer in art history at Columbia, to share her experience with about 75 UCLA faculty members. On Zoom, she told them how most of her students were hungry to talk about what they were going through, even though they came from different backgrounds and experienced things differently.

“Their libraries are closed right now,” she said in an interview. “It’s finals. They have had friends arrested. Some of them have been protesting against a genocide, and this has deeply disrupted all sorts of aspects of their lives.”

The crisis at UCLA reached a climax Thursday morning.

Protesters learned that the administration was going to shut down their encampment, Blair said.

“The faculty was there to try to be the first people arrested, to stand in front of the students to bear witness,” he said. “We watched from that vantage as the California Highway Patrol aimed weapons that were using nonlethal ammunition. We basically pleaded with them to not aim their weapons at our students, at what was an entirely peaceful protest.”

Ultimately, about 200 protesters were arrested, along with about 10 faculty members, Blair said. Many were lecturers and assistant professors, without the protections of tenure, he said, adding, “It remains to be seen what the consequences will be.”

The New York Times News Service

US Department of Education to investigate Columbia University over anti-Palestinian discrimination

Columbia University is under federal investigation for anti-Palestinian racism, including by inviting New York police, says Palestine Legal

3/05/2024 Friday
AA


The US Department of Education is launching a federal investigation into anti-Palestinian discrimination against students at New York's Columbia University, the Palestinian advocacy group Palestine Legal said Thursday.

“Today @EDcivilrights announced @Columbia is under federal investigation for anti-Palestinian racism, including by inviting NYPD officers in riot gear to arrest Palestinian and associated students protesting Israel's genocide in Gaza,” Palestine Legal wrote in a X post.

“The law is clear— if universities do not cease their racist crackdowns against Palestinians and their supporters, they will risk losing federal funding” Palestine Legal senior staff attorney Radhika Sainath said in a statement.

The investigation comes a week after Palestine Legal filed a complaint claiming that Columbia University was engaging in discrimination against Palestinian students and those advocating for Gaza, accusing the university of creating an unsafe environment for those students.

Columbia University is under criticism for asking the New York Police Department to forcibly evict a group of students who staged an encampment on a campus lawn. Over 100 people were arrested on April 18, but the protesters quickly adapted and formed another sit-in.

They were forcibly removed on Tuesday night by police from that site, as well as a building they occupied.

The school has asked police to remain on campus until the day after its graduations conclude.

Echoes of Vietnam war protest — A timeline of America's Student Spring

As universities and police struggle to control demonstrations that have brought US campuses to a standstill, student-led protests against Israel's "genocidal" war in Gaza show no signs of abating two weeks on.


Police arrests an anti-war demonstrator at UT Austin as Student Spring protests gain momentum throughout the US, with nearly 2,000 arrests nationwide, spanning students and professors alike./ Photo: X

Students-led pro-Palestine protests demanding an immediate end to Israel's brutal war on Gaza and their universities divest from companies linked to Tel Aviv have spread across US universities in the two weeks since Columbia University administrators called in police to dismantle an encampment on their New York City campus.

Below is a timeline of significant events in the biggest wave of US student activism — dubbed "Student Spring" — since the anti-racism protests of 2020.


APRIL 17 — Columbia University students set up a Gaza Solidarity Encampment on their Manhattan campus the same day the university's president Minouche Shafik testifies before the US Congress.


APRIL 18 — Over 100 pro-Palestine protesters are arrested at Columbia after university president asks New York police to clear the encampment.


APRIL 22 — Police arrest hundreds of people at pro-Palestine protests at Yale University in Connecticut and New York University in Manhattan after Columbia University canceled classes in response to its encampment.


APRIL 24 — Riot police are deployed against pro-Palestine protesters at University of Texas, Austin with 57 arrests for criminal trespass. The level of force, until then unprecedented, is later seen at other campuses.


APRIL 25 — In comments at Columbia University, US House Speaker Mike Johnson portrays the campus as out of control and suggests US military reserve forces should be brought in to restore order.


APRIL 27 — Arrest numbers swell over 1,000 on campuses as administrators call in police to break up encampments at universities from Massachusetts to Arizona.


APRIL 28 — Zionist demonstrators clash with anti-war protesters at UCLA near an encampment of pro-Palestine protesters.


APRIL 29 — Clashes between Zionist and anti-war protests erupt at UCLA and UCLA authorities declare the protest encampment unlawful. Columbia begins suspending pro-Palestine student activists at encampment.


APRIL 30 — Brown University students agree to remove camp in return for vote by university trustees on divestment from firms supporting Israel, marking first such deal for protest movement.

Pro-Israeli and Zionist protesters attack UCLA Gaza solidarity camp, four UCLA student journalists among injured. Police arrest dozens of people at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt as they clear buildings occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters.


MAY 1 — New York City police arrest dozens of pro-Palestine demonstrators occupying an academic building on Columbia University campus and remove protest encampment.


MAY 2 — Police clear pro-Palestine encampment at UCLA. In the past two weeks, over 2,000 student and faculty protesters are arrested at universities across the US.

 

2,000+ seized, ribs broken, students threatened: Latest on US campus demos

Police continue crackdown on participants of Student Spring protests in New York, Texas, and California, and Minnesota University resolves encampment issue with protesters. Here is more:



REUTERS

Police struggle with demonstrators and student activists after protesters hung a giant Palestinian flag at a protest encampment in support of Palestine, in University Yard at George Washington University in Washington, US, May 2, 2024. / Photo: Reuters


The Student Spring protests on the US campuses, the biggest and most prolonged since the Vietnam demonstrations in the 1960s and 70s, continued on Thursday despite pro-Zionism rioters attacking students and police cracking down on anti-war students and staff.

Tent encampments of protesters are calling on universities and colleges to stop doing business with Israel or firms they say support the brutal war in Gaza in a student movement unlike any other this century.

More than 2,000 protesters have been arrested over the last two weeks on universities across the US, including the University of Texas at Austin, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt.

Here are the latest developments👇


Arrests on campuses in Stony Brook, New York, Dallas

In New York, Stony Brook University officials said 29 people were arrested early on Thursday morning, including students, faculty members, and others not affiliated with the school.

The University of Texas said on Thursday that 17 people were arrested on criminal trespass charges Wednesday after demonstrators refused to comply with orders to take down an encampment built on the main walkway of the Dallas campus.

At the University of Pennsylvania and at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, officers lined up to separate opposing camps of demonstrators waving Israeli and Palestinian flags.

And bulldozers were scooping up bags of trash and dismantled tents at the University of California, Los Angeles, where crowds swelled to more than 1,000 at a pro-Palestine encampment before police finally cleared the area early Thursday.

California Highway Patrol Sgt. Alejandro Rubio says at least 132 people were arrested at UCLA. They were taken for booking at the county jails complex, and campus police will determine any charges.


Professor suffers nine broken ribs, broken hand during arrest

A college professor from Illinois suffered nine broken ribs and a broken hand when he was arrested ruing a pro-Palestine protest at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, he has said in a statement.

Bystander video shows that Steve Tamari, a history professor specialising in Middle East studies at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, seemed to be moving in to take video or pictures of protesters being detained when multiple officers roughly took him down Saturday.

The video shows an officer driving his knee into Tamari while Tamari is on the ground, and later shows the professor handcuffed with his arms behind him as officers dragged his limp body toward a van and then dropped him face down on the ground.


Johns Hopkins University threatens protesters with suspension

Around two dozen tents have been established at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, with over 100 studnets and staff present at the site, according to organisers.

Protesters told TRT World that the administration has threatened to suspend them.

Meanwhile, a police helicopter flew at a low altitude to observe the protest site where the students held "decolonial yoga class", a script reading on revolution, and de-escalation training.



TRT WORLD

Tents are seen at the Johns Hopkins University campus in Baltimore, Maryland, with one reading "Free Gaza".


GOP leaders praise University of Texas-Austin's leader crackdown order

Republicans have praised Jay Hartzell, President of University of Texas at Austin after urging a crackdown against pro-Palestine protests on campus.

"President [Hartzell] is exactly the right man at the right time to lead our state's flagship university," said state Representative Jeff Leach.

Representative Cody Harris said on X, "The vast majority of us think [Hartzell] is doing a fantastic job" and referred to student protesters as "snot-nosed, entitled, mindless brats."

University of Minnesota reopens after deal with protesters

The University of Minnesota has reopened after administrators said they reached an agreement with protesters to end the encampment set up in the heart of the Minneapolis campus.

Interim President Jeff Ettinger said a deal has been reached with pro-Palestine protesters to end the encampment that has been set up for three days.

"While there is more work to do, and conversations are still planned with other student groups affected by the painful situation in Palestine, I am heartened by today's progress," Ettinger wrote in the email.

"It grew out of a desire among those involved to reach a shared understanding."

In exchange, representatives of the coalition of student organisations involved will get to address the university's Board of Regents at their meeting next Friday, May 10, and the discussion will include their demands that the university divest its investments in Israel.


Rutgers sets deadline for protesters to disperse

Rutgers University administrators have said they will have law enforcement officers remove protesters and their belongings from the New Brunswick campus if they don't disperse before 4 pm on Thursday.

University President Jonathan Holloway gave the ultimatum in a statement published on the school's website. He said the protests forced the school to postpone final exams, which were set to begin on Thursday morning in the buildings surrounding the protest and encampment.

Holloway said a morning rally disrupted 28 exams, impacting more than 1,000 students.


Pro-Palestine student escorted out of Georgia State University graduation

A pro-Palestine graduate has been escorted out of Georgia State University's [GSU] commencement ceremony after appearing to stage a protest of Israel's ongoing carnage in besieged Gaza.

Video of the person, identified on university video of the event as Bisan Falasteen Hurrah Hamid, appears to show her walking across the stage during Wednesday morning's ceremony while holding a traditional Arab scarf known as a keffiyeh, stretching it tightly across her back while shouting.

Her words are unclear, but raucous cheers and claps can be heard erupting from the crowd as at least two senior faculty members, including a man who appears to be Chancellor Sonny Perdue and another person who is likely GSU Public Health Dean Rodney Lyn Health, on the stage clap and smile in apparent approval.

Hamid is identified as a Master of Public Health graduate in the official video.



Students of University of Vermont seek cancellation of UN envoy's speech

Student protesters at the University of Vermont have called on Thursday for the school to cancel a commencement speech by Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations.

The protesters, some of whom have been camping out in tents on campus since Sunday, are also demanding that UVM divest from weapons manufacturers and Israeli companies.

UVM spokesperson Adam White said university leaders have heard all the students' concerns. He said the school plans to disclose investments in its endowment by week's end, but not in response to the protesters.

Greenfield vetoed multiple Gaza ceasefire resolutions.


Dozens arrested at Portland State University

Police have cleared a library at Portland State University in Oregon that pro-Palestinian demonstrators had occupied since Monday. Officers said they made a dozen arrests, four of them students.

They found extensive graffiti on the walls inside the library as well as furniture stacked in barricades and caches of tools and paint balloons. Portland Police say at least two of the arrests were made outside the library, where a crowd gathered. Protesters banged pots and pans and briefly blocked the entrance to a major freeway.



AFP

Police and pro-Palestinian students face off during a demonstration on the campus of Portland State University in Portland.


California Republicans want university leaders fired for allowing protests

California Republican leaders have blasted university administrations, falsely claiming they failed to protect Jewish students and should have prevented campus protests against the Israeli genocide in Gaza from escalating into "lawlessness and violence."

They now call for the firing of leaders at universities such as UCLA, where more than 200 people were arrested during a police sweep that ended early on Thursday, and California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, where more than 30 were arrested early on Tuesday.

They're also pushing for a proposal that would cut pay for university administrations.

"We've got a whole lot of people in these universities drawing six-figure salaries, and they stood by and did nothing," Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher told reporters on Thursday.

This came a day after rioters violently attacked pro-Palestine protesters at the University of California.


New Mexico protests move from campus to Air Force base

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, about two dozen protesters sat in the middle of a roadway blocking access to one of the main gates at Kirtland Air Force Base on Thursday morning, waving flags and vowing to "shut everything down" over US military support for Israel during its carnage in Gaza.

Base spokesperson Rob Smith said Kirtland supports citizens' rights to peacefully assemble and protest and that base security would monitor the situation throughout the day. Meanwhile, the gate would remain closed indefinitely and people who work on the base were advised to use other routes.


Florida Chancellor orders presidents to prevent disruption of commencements

Florida's state university chancellor has ordered campus presidents to "take any necessary steps" to prevent protestors from disrupting graduation ceremonies.

The order covers the University of Florida, Florida State University, Central Florida University, Florida A&M University and eight others.

"We must protect the integrity of our commencement ceremonies and ensure the safety of our students," Chancellor Ray Rodrigues wrote in a memo to presidents, adding that no ceremonies should be cancelled or substantively modified.

"These ceremonies are important milestones for our graduating students, and we owe it to our students to see to it that these ceremonies take place as planned. While we respect and honour the First Amendment, a commencement ceremony is not the time nor place to hold a political protest."


Biden says violence has no part in peaceful protests

President Joe Biden defended the right to peacefully protest on college campuses but said vandalism, violence, hate speech and other "chaos" have no part in a peaceful protest.

"Dissent is essential for democracy," he said at the White House on Thursday morning. "But dissent must never lead to disorder."

"We are a civil society, and order must prevail," Biden said. "We are a big, diverse, free-thinking and freedom-loving nation."

His comments came amid police crackdown and rioters' violence against pro-Palestine protests across campuses.

Trump praises police crackdown on students

Former president Donald Trump has commended police who cleared pro-Palestine protesters from college campuses as he arrived in court on Thursday morning for another day of his criminal hush money trial.

"It's a shame. I'm so proud of the New York's finest. They're great,” Trump told reporters after police cleared demonstrators who had taken over an academic building at Columbia University.

"They did a job in Columbia, and likewise in Los Angeles. They did a really good job at UCLA."

Trump, in his comments, blamed the protests on "the radical left," which he has railed against for years.


Arrests at Yale University

Yale police arrested four people on Wednesday night after around 200 demonstrators had marched to the school president's home and to the campus police department, Yale officials said.

School officials said in a statement on Thursday that protesters ignored repeated warnings that they were violating university policy by occupying parts of campus without permission.

Two of those arrested were students, and the others were not, Yale said.

The protest group Occupy Yale said campus police were violent during the arrests and did not issue warnings beforehand.

The group posted a video on Instagram showing officers bringing one arrestee to the ground and pinning another on a sidewalk.

"A peaceful protest," Occupy Yale said. "Police officers seized, pushed, and brutalised people. Is this what you call keeping campus safe?"


Dartmouth College president justifies crackdown

Dartmouth College President Sian Leah Beilock has defended the decision to call in police on students resulting in the arrest of around 90 people on Wednesday night, hours after an encampment had been set up.

"Last night, people felt so strongly about their beliefs that they were willing to face disciplinary action and arrest. While there is bravery in that, part of choosing to engage in this way is not just acknowledging — but accepting — that actions have consequences," she said in a statement.

She cited campus policies prohibiting demonstrations that interfere with Dartmouth's academic mission or increase safety risks.

"When policies like these have been ignored on other campuses, hate and violence have thrived — events, like commencement, are cancelled, instruction is forced to go remote, and, worst of all, abhorrent antisemitism and Islamophobia reign," Beilock said.

Amazon deforestation: Cheap supermarket meat is killing the rainforest and driving people like Osvalinda from their homes – Philip Lymbery

Smallholders like the late Osvalinda Pereira face a campaign of deadly threats and harassment from big companies that produce feed for animals in Europe and China

By Philip Lymbery
Published 3rd May 2024, 

The noise was deafening as dust clouds formed beside the seemingly impenetrable Amazon rainforest. A bulldozer then started clanking through the clearing, its engine roaring, pulling a heavy-duty metal chain originally designed for mooring ships which tightened fast like a fishing line. At the other end was another bulldozer.


With an ear-splitting din, the two moved together through the forest. Nothing escaped. Everything was brought down. No matter how old or stubborn. Onlookers laughed as another patch of rainforest was destroyed. Correntão, or ‘The Chain’, is a controversial means of deforestation. Long considered illegal in Brazil but now authorised in the state of Mato Grosso, whole stands of trees can be brought down in seconds. The remnants of ancient forest are then cleared, first by fire, and then by cattle.

There’s nothing new about the expansion of cattle ranching in the Amazon rainforest. What’s little known is how the real driver of this destruction is ‘cheap’ meat on our supermarket shelves.

Osvalinda Pereira, who was twice forced out of smallholdings in Brazil's Mato Grosso, died on April 12 (Picture: Mauricio Monteiro Filho/CIWF)

Amazon ‘soya rush’

Existing cattle pastures have been put to the plough to grow crops to feed chickens, pigs, fish, and dairy cows, much of which is exported to China, Europe, and the UK. The UK annually imports about three million tonnes of soya, the vast majority for animal feed. Longstanding cattle pastures in Brazil are replaced with soya in what is known as a ‘land-use cascade’. Triggered by demand for soya for export, this cascade has caused land prices to rocket as much as ten-fold.

Read MoreScotland’s rainforest: What is it, where is it and why is it under threat?


Cattle ranchers then sell their fields for enormous profits and expand their herds elsewhere with the proceeds. The ‘soya rush’ has led to dramatic levels of deforestation, not least in the Amazon.

As industrial agriculture, or ‘Big Ag’, moves in to the forest, small farmers are forced out. Just one of the many moving stories involves a couple, Osvalinda and Daniel.


They were fulfilling a long-held dream by running a smallholding in the Mato Grosso. They had crops, dairy cattle and chickens. Then they became surrounded by big agricultural producers. The Correntão passed, bringing down surrounding forest. When the couple’s health began to suffer, they moved out, only for history to repeat itself 1,000 miles away.

Trees help humans in so many different ways. Yet they still need defending – Philip Lymbery

Graves dug as a threat

On another settlement, Osvalinda and Daniel found themselves again as smallholders in a sea of big producers sharking for land. It was then that the threats and intimidation began. One morning in 2018, Osvalinda went to tend to her chickens and found two graves meticulously dug with crosses, one for her and one for her husband. They fled to the city.

Their plight mirrors that of other small farmers in the wake of the soya rush. For some, like Osvalinda and Daniel, moving on becomes the only option. Through the lens of Osvalinda and Daniel’s story, I came to realise that whilst cattle ranching has long been linked to Amazon deforestation, the real driving force is closer to home: cheap, soya-fed meat and dairy on our supermarket shelves.

Postscript: This article is dedicated to the memory of Osvalinda Maria Alves Pereira who passed away on April 12, 2024.


Philip Lymbery is chief executive of Compassion in World Farming, a former United Nations Food Systems Champion and an award-winning author. His latest book is Sixty Harvests Left: How to Reach a Nature-Friendly Future. Philip is on Twitter @philip_ciwf

MODERN PRIMITIVES

Battle of Waterloo: Teeth taken from the dead were worn with pride amid patriotic fervour over Wellington's victory – Susan Morrison

Replacement teeth were not the only grisly uses of the remains of those who fell at Waterloo

By Susan Morrison
Published 3rd May 2024

The day after the Battle of Waterloo was a busy one. The battlefield buzzed with human scavengers as they stalked through the clouds of flies swirling around more than 50,000 dead men, including the fallen of Scottish regiments such as the Royal Scots Greys, the Highland Light Infantry and the Black Watch. They didn’t overlook the tens of thousands more who lay wounded and alone. Money was to be made from bloodied armour, discarded swords, fancy officers uniforms, and teeth. These grisly tooth fairies had markets and mouths to fill.

Rotten teeth, their removal and replacement, has a long and royal tradition in Scotland. When James IV of Scotland, a king who took up hobbies the way his brother-in-law Henry burned through wives, paid to have a troublesome tooth removed, he became so fascinated by the process he ordered his own set of pinchers (pliers). In 1511, he actually whipped out two teeth from one of his own courtiers. Fortunately, current royal interests lie in town planning and architecture. On the plus side, James went on to grant a charter to the barbers and surgeons of Edinburgh in 1505, one of the first in the world.

By the Age of Enlightenment, Scotland's sugar-damaged choppers were being replaced by wallies made from porcelain, ivory and carved animal teeth. Some sets and replacements were made from human teeth. No one could be too sure where they came from. Some were a tad squeamish about flashing the gnashers of some grave-robbed corpse.

A French dentist shows an example of his false teeth in an picture from 1811 (Artist Thomas Rowlandson/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

Tooth transplants

Fortunately East Kilbride-born pioneering surgeon John Hunter was on the case. His revolutionary work on blood vessels led him to believe that it would be possible to transplant a healthy tooth into a human mouth. Embedding false ‘teeth’ wasn’t new. Skulls thousands of years old have been found with gold and silver teeth in their jaws, even shells in place of molars.

French cuirassiers charge a British square during the Battle of Waterloo (Image: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)


But Hunter believed that living teeth from donors could be embedded in the jaw. In the late 1770s, he started by transplanting a tooth into the comb of a cockerel. Hunter had observed that the coxcomb was rich in blood vessels. Fertile soil for tooth planting. In the Hunterian museum in London, there is just such a comb, with a human tooth sticking out of it. Hunter declared the experiment a great success. The tooth, he said, showed signs of embedding and the blood vessels signs of growth. Modern scientists believe that Hunter simply walloped the tooth in hard, and that’s what kept it in place whilst the blood vessels grew around it like ivy.


No matter. Here was the cockerel’s comb and there was an apparently living human tooth. The craze for tooth transplanting was on. The poor lined up to sell their healthy incisors and the rich paid to replace their rotting fangs. It sometimes worked, and probably for the same reason as the coxcomb. The donor teeth were hammered in, and some stayed in place for a few years, but they were prone to disease.


Extraction and implanting were done entirely free of such modern fripperies as anaesthetic or pain relief. Not surprisingly, many decided a swift one-off operation was a better solution. Get them all out, and get the false teeth in, fitted by a specialist with a fancy new title. In 1927, dental historian Lillian Lindsay believed she had discovered the first use of the word ‘dentist’ in the UK. The Edinburgh Chronicle of 1759 reported on “the mob's further remonstrance against the importation of French words”. One of those words was ‘dentist’. Apparently, the Scots didn’t like it, preferred the term “tooth-puller” and threw a hissy fit. No matter, ‘dentist’ remained.


Battlefield recycling

Lindsay was not just a dental historian, she was also part of that history. She was the first trained female dentist In Britain, qualifying in Edinburgh in 1895. Lillian was championed by an orthodontic legend, W Bowman Macleod, a man clearly unafraid to confront the big questions of the age. He once addressed the Odonto-Chirurgical Society of Scotland with probably the first paper to examine the effects of bagpipe playing on the teeth.

Dentists could fit sets carved from walrus, elephant and narwhal tusks, but human teeth were very popular. The end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century was a golden era for professional tooth hunters. The Napoleonic Wars meant rich pickings literally lay all around in the aftermath of an epic battle. Obviously, these battlefield recycling specialists took everything they could get from the dead – and the dying – but teeth were lucrative, and easy to transport. Following some bloody encounters, so many teeth were removed that they needed barrels to take them away.

Waterloo was a gold mine. The men with the pliers were out early, shipping the teeth back, ready to be boiled, assorted and assembled into sets. Even though technically the trade was prohibited, they even became a sort of brand name. Such was the patriotic fervour associated with Wellington's victory that these battlefield falsies were proudly worn as ‘Waterloo Teeth’.

It’s hard to know just how many of the soldiers who fell that day were dentally looted. We could analyse their skulls, but we’d have to find them first. Despite the terrible death toll, only three mass graves accounting for some 13,000 men have been found at Waterloo.

There is a very strong chance that they are not there. The dead of Waterloo didn’t rest easy even when they were underground. They lay quiet for a time, but then their bones were mined, crushed and sold as fertiliser. There’s probably no corner of that Belgian field forever a laddie of the Gordon Highlanders, but there may well be English fields fertilised by his bones.

UK whistleblower ‘morally compelled’ to speak out on Afghan withdrawal

Matthew Weaver
Thu, 2 May 2024 

Josie Stewart was ‘horrified’ by the chaos and dysfunction at the Whitehall crisis centre, the tribunal heard.Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian


A Foreign Office civil servant felt “morally compelled” to speak to the media about the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan after the government presented a “dishonest account” of what happened, an employment tribunal has heard.

Josie Stewart was sacked by the Foreign Office (FCDO) after blowing the whistle on the failures of the withdrawal from Kabul and disclosing emails indicating Boris Johnson’s involvement in an “outrageous” decision to prioritise the evacuation of staff from the animal charity Nowzad, despite his denials.

Her claim for unfair dismissal on the grounds that her whistleblowing was protected under the Employment Rights Act 1996 began on Thursday at the central London employment tribunal.


Stewart was “horrified” by the chaos and dysfunction at the Whitehall crisis centre where she had volunteered to work when the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, the tribunal was told.

She believed “the government’s mismanagement of the crisis caused huge amounts of avoidable suffering in Afghanistan and that it had probably cost lives”.

Her lawyers’ opening arguments also said Stewart and others “believed that, at a moment of very high stakes, the UK government failed badly, and that political and civil service leaders sought to ‘cover up’ failures, presenting a misleading and in some instances even dishonest account to the public”.

She agreed to speak anonymously to the BBC about these failures after a junior civil servant, Raphael Marshall, gave damning evidence to a committee of MPs about the withdrawal from Afghanistan and was then subjected to attempts to discredit him, the tribunal was told.

She also leaked emails to the BBC after Johnson had described as “complete nonsense” claims that he had been involved in the decision to evacuate Nowzad staff and animals, the court was told. The emails “indicated, contrary to the prime minister’s claim, that No 10 had been involved in the decisions relating to Nowzad”, the submission said.

It added: “[Stewart] had viewed numerous emails which appeared to confirm the PM’s involvement in the Nowzad decision and it was impossible to reconcile those emails with the PM’s public denial of any involvement.” Her lawyers argued that Stewart was acting in the public interest.

She was suspended and then sacked after a BBC reporter tweeted the emails and “unintentionally” disclosed Stewart’s identity. The case will decide the extent of the rights of civil servants to make public interest disclosures to the press.

In her witness statement, Stewart said she knew she was unauthorised to speak to the media but felt she had been put in an impossible position. “Doing so [speaking to the media] was less wrong than my alternatives,” her statement said. Her lawyers described Stewart as “a committed and public-spirited person who was deeply troubled by what she observed in the crisis centre, and by subsequent portrayals of what had happened, and who in the end felt morally compelled to speak out”.

She was dismissed without any allowance for statutory whistleblowing protection, the submission said.

Lawyers for the FCDO had previously challenged the admissibility of some of Stewart’s evidence on the grounds that including parts of her witness testimony would breach principles of parliamentary privilege.

In November, the employment tribunal decided to allow some of the whistleblower’s contested evidence, but redacted some elements.

An FCDO spokesperson said: “The 2021 Afghanistan response was the biggest mission of its kind in generations and the second largest evacuation carried out by any country – and we are proud of our staff who worked tirelessly to evacuate more than 15,000 people within a fortnight.

“We have learned lessons from the evacuation and have seen the benefits of this work in our response to the Sudan and Niger evacuations, as well as in our response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing situation in the Middle East.

“We have continued to provide assistance to those in Afghanistan, including bringing thousands more people to safety. We cannot comment further while legal proceedings are ongoing.”

The tribunal will continue until 20 May.

Failures in Afghanistan evacuation probably cost lives, tribunal hears

Piers Mucklejohn, PA
Thu, 2 May 2024 

A sacked Foreign Office whistleblower believed the Government’s “chaotic, dysfunctional and ineffective” response to the fall of Kabul “probably cost lives”, a tribunal has heard.

Josie Stewart was “horrified” at how the Afghanistan Crisis Centre was run, as top politicians and officials – including then-prime minister Boris Johnson – prioritised “managing political and media fallout” over evacuating “those in most need on the ground”, tribunal documents say.

Ms Stewart, a former senior official at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), was dismissed after an interview with the BBC in which she spoke about her “tragic experiences” working in the FCDO crisis centre in the summer of 2021.


Following the Taliban gaining control of Afghanistan, the British government evacuated 15,000 people from its capital, Kabul, in what was known as Operation Pitting.

On Thursday, Ms Stewart attended an employment tribunal against the department, in which she is alleging unfair dismissal for making a protected disclosure.

The case will decide the extent of the rights of civil servants to make public interest disclosures to the press when “misleading claims” from ministers and civil servants are made to Parliament and the media, according to Ms Stewart’s lawyers.

Following the Taliban gaining control of Afghanistan in summer 2021, the British government evacuated 15,000 people from the country (MoD/PA)

Documents supplied to the Central London Employment Tribunal read: “(Ms Stewart) believed that the Government’s mismanagement of the crisis caused huge amounts of avoidable suffering in Afghanistan and that it had probably cost lives.”

Ms Stewart also suggested Mr Johnson, then-foreign secretary Dominic Raab and other “political and civil service leaders” made misleading claims about the success of the evacuation efforts in Afghanistan and the performance of the crisis centre.

She said in some instances officials were deliberately “dishonest”.

The tribunal heard Mr Johnson was involved in an “outrageous” decision to allow animals and staff working for the charity Nowzad to use Kabul airport which he then publicly denied involvement with – an allegation Ms Stewart had put before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in 2022.

Internal emails, to which Ms Stewart had access, demonstrated that Mr Johnson had been involved in the decision, her lawyers argued.

They added: “Demonstrating that the (Prime Minister) had intervened in a potentially life and death scenario to favour a less vulnerable group over a more vulnerable group, and then publicly denied doing so, is a matter of quintessential public interest.”

The tribunal heard Boris Johnson was involved in an ‘outrageous’ decision to allow animals and staff working for the charity Nowzad to use Kabul airport (Andrew Boyers/PA)

Mr Raab had told the same committee in September 2021 that he believed the crisis centre had met requirements, a comment Ms Stewart had suggested was “misleading” at a preliminary tribunal hearing last year.

Ms Stewart – whose anonymity was compromised after her unredacted emails were accidentally posted on social media – did not feel “safe” disclosing her concerns internally at the FCDO as she feared the department may have put “a black mark against my name”, tribunal judges heard.

Her lawyers said this left the whistleblower in an “impossible” situation as she believed it was in the public interest to speak out about how the Government had failed and subsequently attempted to “cover up” those failures.

In a witness statement referred to at an earlier preliminary hearing, Ms Stewart claimed she “witnessed denial, lies and the complete lack of accountability” while working on the Afghan crisis response.

She said: “In my career as a civil servant, I witnessed many failings within government and was privy to much information that would have made a good news story.

“I disclosed none of it.

“But through the Afghan evacuation, I witnessed both the biggest foreign policy failure of our time and the shameful handling of the resulting crisis.

Ms Stewart did not feel ‘safe’ disclosing her concerns internally (Yui Mok/PA)

Lawyers for the FCDO had previously challenged the admissibility of some of Ms Stewart’s evidence on the grounds that including parts of her witness testimony would breach article nine of the Bill of Rights 1689 and general principles of parliamentary privilege.

Article nine says: “The freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament.”

In November, the employment tribunal decided to allow some of the whistleblower’s contested evidence, but redacted some elements.

An FCDO spokesperson said: “The 2021 Afghanistan response was the biggest mission of its kind in generations and the second largest evacuation carried out by any country – and we are proud of our staff who worked tirelessly to evacuate more than 15,000 people within a fortnight.

“We have learned lessons from the evacuation and have seen the benefits of this work in our response to the Sudan and Niger evacuations, as well as in our response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing situation in the Middle East.

“We have continued to provide assistance to those in Afghanistan, including bringing thousands more people to safety. We cannot comment further while legal proceedings are ongoing.”

The tribunal will continue until May 20.

UK

 

UK police arrest 45 at protest against migrant removals

By

 AFP

Police in London made 45 arrests on Thursday as protesters tried to stop the removal of migrants from their temporary accommodation, after the UK government began detaining people before controversial deportation flights to Rwanda.

Dozens of people surrounded a bus believed to be taking asylum seekers from a hotel in the Peckham area of south London to the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge moored off the south coast of England.

Several other protests have been held or are planned around the country to stop immigration officers detaining migrants.

In Peckham, police moved in to disperse the protesters, who had formed a human chain around the bus and blocked the road in front of a hotel.

Most had their faces covered and hire bikes were put under the wheels of the bus, which reportedly had its tyres slashed or deflated.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan, from the Metropolitan Police, said officers were sent to remove people from the road.

“A total of 45 people have been arrested and taken into police custody for offences including obstruction of the highway, obstructing police and assault on police,” he said.

The bus left the scene without the seven migrants on board, according to protesters. Similar action in Margate, southeast England, on Wednesday also stopped migrants being taken to the Bibby Stockholm.

Interior minister James Cleverly was defiant and condemned those seeking to stop the removals.

“Housing migrants in hotels costs the British taxpayer millions of pounds every day,” he wrote on the social media platform X.

“We will not allow this small group of students, posing for social media, to deter us from doing what is right for the British public.”

Cleverly’s ministry this week confirmed that it has begun detaining asylum seekers before planned deportation to Rwanda, after parliament passed a law declaring it a safe country.

Several migrants were seen in photos and video footage released by the ministry being taken away in handcuffs by immigration officers.

– Channel crossings –

The ministry has not confirmed how many people have been held so far, but the government says it expects Rwanda to take 5,700 migrants this year.

The protests come after official figures published on Thursday showed that 711 people were brought ashore the previous day after trying to cross the Channel in small boats from northern France.

The number is the highest on a single day so far this year and comes even as London insists that its plan to “stop the boats” is working, including through the Rwanda deportation scheme.

The new high is more than the previous 2024 single-day record of 534 on April 14. 

It takes the total number of migrants who have made the Channel crossing so far this year to 8,278 — up more than a quarter on the same period in 2023.

The highest-ever single-day arrivals figure was 1,295 and was recorded on August 22, 2022.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman said the figures demonstrated why the Rwanda plan was needed but the main opposition Labour party called it “unaffordable and unworkable”.

French police on Wednesday said they had rescued 66 people after their boat ran into trouble off the coastal town of Dieppe.

UK police have made several arrests as part of an investigation into the deaths of five people whose boat got into difficulties off the French coast on April 23.

Migration — both regular and irregular — has been a major political issue in the UK, given the government’s promise to tighten the country’s borders after leaving the European Union.

But doing so has proved a challenge, with the Conservative government desperate to trumpet successes as it goes into local elections on Thursday and a general election later this year.

Some 122,600 people have been intercepted in British waters and brought ashore since the UK began recording such arrivals in 2018.

by Henry NICHOLLS

Arrests made as protesters block coach taking asylum seekers to Bibby Stockholm



Police try to stop protesters forming a blockade around a coach in Peckham (Yui Mok/PA)
By PA ReportersToday at 11:55

More than 40 people have been arrested after protesters blocked a coach set to take asylum seekers to the Bibby Stockholm barge.

Police said they were called at around 8.40am on Thursday to reports of people obstructing a coach, which was parked outside a Best Western Hotel in Peckham, south-east London.

A total of 45 people were arrested after officers were assaulted whilst trying to stop the protesters from obstructing the coach, the Metropolitan Police said.

A large group of people, many with their faces covered, surrounded the coach and were seen linking arms and sitting in Peckham Road.

Pictures showed lines of police officers attending the scene, while footage captured some jostling with protesters at one point.

The demonstrators could be heard chanting “no borders, no nations, stop deportations”, “say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here”, and “when refugees are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back”.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan said in a statement: “It saddens me greatly to say that a number of officers have been assaulted in the course of their duty following an incident in Peckham today where they sought to uphold the law.”



Police officers at the scene in Peckham (Yui Mok/PA)

He said that officers spoke to the coach driver and protesters “at length” and warned them that they could be arrested, and added: “After this demonstrators blocked the road and continued to prevent the coach, and police vehicles, from leaving.

“More officers were sent to the scene to safely remove people from the road, allow the vehicles to leave and for the road to reopen.

“A number of officers have reported being assaulted. Thankfully I’m glad that none of those are seriously hurt.”




Police remove a protester after demonstrators formed a blockade around the coach (Yui Mok/PA)

But protesters claimed police had been “pushing and shoving” peaceful demonstrators.


Laurence Smith, founder of the charity Lewisham Donation Hub, said two of his organisation’s volunteers, who are asylum seekers, had been threatened with being sent to the barge.

He told the PA news agency: “I came down today to make sure our volunteers left that hotel and went to the private accommodation that we found.”




Protesters formed a blockade around the coach which was set to take asylum seekers to the Bibby Stockholm barge (Yui Mok/PA)

He added that he had spoken to Superintendent Matt Cox, from the Metropolitan Police, at 10am to try to defuse the situation.

Jennie, 34, who did not want to give her surname, is a member of one of the groups who were involved in the protest.

She told PA: “We’re now trying to support the asylum seekers who weren’t removed.”


Jennie, who had visible cuts and bruises on her arms and hands, said police were “pushing and shoving” people and that she needed medical attention.

PA understands the asylum seekers were taken off the coach and have not yet left the hotel.

No amount of chanting, drum banging or tyre-slashing by a noisy few will prevent us doing what is necessary to deliver the firm but fair approach that the British people expectJames Cleverly, Home Secretary

The Home Office has not confirmed whether there are plans to try again to move the asylum seekers to the barge on another day or if the move had been abandoned, but Home Secretary James Cleverly said protests would not deter the “firm but fair approach the British people expect”.

He said: “We will continue to remove those with no right to be here, despite continued efforts by the Labour Party and a coalition of disparate student groups to stop us.

“No amount of chanting, drum banging or tyre-slashing by a noisy few will prevent us doing what is necessary to deliver the firm but fair approach that the British people expect.


“I’d like to thank the police for their swift and professional action. They have my full support in clamping down on unacceptable criminality, racism and intimidation regardless of where it comes from.”

It comes as the Home Office abandoned plans to move a group of asylum seekers to the barge in the wake of protests in Margate last week.