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Police arrested about 100 people, Northeastern said. Anyone detained who could produce a valid Northeast ID was released, the school said.
Police officers arrest protesters camped on Centennial Common on Northeastern’s campus early Saturday morning. Police arrested around 100 people in the second such operation at a Boston college last week. Erin Clark/The Boston Globe
Police dismantled a pro-Palestinian encampment at Northeastern University on Saturday morning, arresting about 100 protesters in the second attempt to dismantle a student encampment this week by law enforcement in Boston.
“Earlier this morning, the Northeast University Police Department (NUPD) – in cooperation with local law enforcement partners – began clearing an unauthorized encampment on the campus of the Boston University,” the university said in a statement Saturday morning around 8 a.m.
Protesters set up camp on the school’s Centennial Common on Thursday, joining students from several Greater Boston colleges and dozens of others across the United States who have pitched tents and staged protests in recent days in following the arrest of about 100 people at a similar encampment in Columbia. University. Students are demanding that their schools cut ties with Israeli businesses and the military and calling for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas.
Police arrested about 100 people, Northeastern said. Anyone detained who could produce a valid Northeast ID was released, the school said.
“They will be subject to disciplinary proceedings within the university, not legal action. Those who refused to disclose their affiliation were arrested,” the university said in a statement.
Massachusetts State Police said they helped clean up the camp after NUPD requested help.
“State Police have deployed personnel to the university campus from Troop H and the Special Emergency Response Team. Officers ordered protesters to disperse and MSP members helped remove protesters who refused to leave,” Dave Procopio, director of media communications for the Massachusetts State Police, said in a statement. .
“The State Police are committed to protecting the lawful exercise of people’s rights to assembly and free speech in a safe and secure manner, as well as protecting the safety and property of all parties involved,” Procopio wrote.
Pictures posted by The New HuntingtonsNortheastern’s student newspaper Saturday morning showed police officers, some in riot gear, using zip ties to restrain protesters and drive them to a nearby campus building, then using vans to transport those arrested.
Early Thursday, police arrested more than 100 people at an encampment built by Emerson College students in an alley next to the school’s downtown campus.
The dispersal of the Northeast encampment means that in the Boston area there are currently pro-Palestinian student encampments at Harvard, MIT and Tufts.
Controversy over anti-Semitic language
In a statement released Saturday morning, Northeastern said outside agitators had joined the protest and highlighted the use of anti-Semitic rhetoric on campus, indicating that it was a factor in the decision to dismantle the camp.
“What began as a student protest two days ago was infiltrated by professional organizers with no affiliation with Northeastern,” the university said in a statement. statement. “Last night, the use of virulent anti-Semitic insults, including “Kill the Jews,” crossed the line. We cannot tolerate this kind of hatred on our campus.
Camp organizers have maintained that most of the pro-Palestinian protesters on campus were students and that no camp members had engaged in anti-Semitism, saying on social media that “anti-Semitic statements at Northeastern had been shouted by Zionist counter-protesters.”
“The camp organizers responded to the provocation with boos and demanding that the Zionist provocateurs leave,” the student group Huskies for a Free Palestine posted on Instagram. “Northeast: Remove the slander, release the students and workers you arrested, disclose and disinvest! »
In a statement to Boston.com Saturday afternoon, a university spokesperson did not directly address the claim that the anti-Semitic comments came from counterprotesters.
“It is not disputed that the phrase ‘Kill the Jews’ was shouted on our campus. The Boston Globe, a trusted news organization, reported this as fact. There is also substantial video evidence. Any suggestion that disgusting anti-Semitic comments are sometimes acceptable depending on the context is reprehensible. This language has no place on any college campus,” said Renata Nyul, the school’s vice president of communications.
Report by the World referred to the use of the phrase “kill the Jews”, but did not specify whether it was said by a protester or a counter-protester.
Videos published on social networks Friday night appear to show a counter-protester waving an Israeli flag just outside the camp shouting “kill the Jews.” Many protesters respond with boos and chants of “we’ll let them go.”
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