The police dispersed another group of pro-Palestinian protesters in California this Wednesday. This time it was at the University of California Irvine, a city 65 kilometers south of Los Angeles. The educational center authorities reported this afternoon that a group of “several hundred people” entered the facilities and surrounded one of the campus buildings. This caused a strong police deployment that expelled the protesters from the facilities after several hours of tension. Several people were arrested, according to local media.
University authorities reported minutes before 5:00 p.m. that they had requested help from the Irvine police and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, where Irvine is located. The message came almost three hours after several people entered the campus, where about 34,000 students attend, and joined members of a camp that had been in place at the university since late April. The protesters, with Palestinian flags and messages against the war in the Middle East, gathered in one of the buildings of the Faculty of Sciences with the intention of taking it over. This caused the cancellation of classes this Wednesday.
“The university advises everyone in the area to seek shelter (…) We strongly urge people to stay away from campus,” the university wrote. on social networks after making public that he had requested police presence.
According to the media and eyewitnesses, the protest had passed peacefully for the majority of the time. The strong operation of the uniformed officers, however, tense things. When the uniformed officers entered the campus, ABC channel cameras showed some pushing and pulling between the students and the authorities. They gave orders to disperse. Those who refused were arrested and handcuffed with plastic strips.
The police formation began to push the protesters around 7:30 p.m. towards a garden. The police marched equipped with riot gear. They used helmets, plastic shields and batons. As seen on other campuses, some of them carried rubber bullet rifles.
In front of them were the students, who faced the police with their hands raised and shouting proclamations in favor of the Palestinian cause. Most had their faces and heads covered with a kafiya and sanitary masks. There were Palestinian and American flags.
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The authorities’ objective was to push them out of the facilities. The riot police coordinated through a megaphone. His advance made the students retreat. This went on for several tense minutes until the majority of the protest remained in a large central garden on the campus. The university has not reported what measures it will take to prevent a new camp from being set up after tonight’s events. As a precaution, classes this Thursday will be held online for thousands of students.
The events have provoked various reactions from local politicians. Farrah Khan, the mayor of Irvine, has criticized the excessive force. “It is a shame that a peaceful protest and free expression always has violence as a response. Taking spaces on campuses or in a building is not a threat to anyone,” she wrote on Twitter. “They are students who have zero weapons,” she added. Will O’Neill, a former mayor of Newport Beach, one of the most conservative enclaves in California, responded to Khan by criticizing him for equating police with violence.
Strike over handling of protests
The most recent police operation has coincided with the call for a strike made by a union that represents 48,000 community members from ten of the University of California campuses. The organization has voted and approved temporary work stoppages in response to the violation of workers’ labor rights after the repression of several peaceful demonstrations at university centers.
The protest has been endorsed by 79% of the 19,780 voters who are part of local chapter 4811 of the United Auto Workers, made up of associate professors, researchers, postdoctoral scholars and other university students. Negotiations are still underway to determine when the strike will begin.
The gesture is in solidarity with the students and faculty members who were part of the pro-Palestinian camps at the university’s campuses in Los Angeles, San Diego and Irvine. But the workers’ vote is also seen as a challenge that adds to the weeks of tension that have been experienced in the university education centers of the most populous state in the country.
The office of the president of the university system, however, has advised the academic body not to join the protest. “The position of the university is that the strike called by the union is illegal and, because of this, the work stoppage will not be considered as part of the right to strike,” says a statement issued this Wednesday. The document threatens “corrective action” for all those who do not fulfill their responsibilities.
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