US police likely used rubber bullets and tear gas in arresting Georgia protesters
Kyiv • UNN
U.S. police likely used rubber bullets and tear gas against protesting students at Emory University in Georgia who were camped out in solidarity with Palestine and against a police training center.
Tensions remain high on American university campuses over numerous protests against the war in Gaza. Police have intervened, conducting arrests of protesters - allegedly using rubber bullets and tear gas, reports The Guardian, reports UNN.
Details
US police made several violent arrests at Emory University in Decatur, Georgia, after students set up a tent camp in solidarity with Palestine and to protest the construction of a police training center.
Emory students set up several tents on campus lawns Thursday to protest the university's ties to Israel as well as Cop City, an Atlanta police and fire department training center being built on a 171-acre site in the woods southeast of Atlanta.
The students posted signs such as "Solidarity Camp with Gaza" and "Refuse to Die.", pictures and made the following statements:
We, students at several Atlanta universities and community members, are organizing against Cop City and the genocide of Palestinians by U.S. imperialism. We demand full institutional rejection of Israeli apartheid and Cop City at all Atlanta colleges and universities
The statement accuses the university of unambiguous "complicity in genocide and police militarization.
Georgia State Patrol officers arrived on campus after the campsites were set up.
The Guardian mentions videos showing police forcibly arresting people: several officers hold a bound man down and use a stun gun on him; a police officer arrests Noelle McAfee, chair of the university's philosophy department.
Supplement
According to Europe 1, police intervened in events at the University of California, Texas, Ohio and Georgia. In total, about 400 demonstrators were arrested and about sixty universities were affected, including the University of California, Los Angeles, where about 200 demonstrators set up tents on the lawn of the university center.
Recall
The pro-Palestinian group Palestine Legal filed a federal lawsuit against Columbia University over the mass arrests of anti-war protesters opposing the war in Gaza.
Pope Francis calls for an end to wars, urging countries to seek peace through negotiation and praying for war-torn Ukraine and the Middle Eastk, lamenting the devastating effects on Ukrainian children who have "forgotten how to smile".
