Columbia University has been rocked by pro-Palestine protests over the last week, prompting police intervention and arrest of 108 demonstrators. But the action has failed to rein in the protests, which continued over the weekend.
The protests took place a day after Columbia University president Nemat Shafik Congressional testimony over anti-Semitism on college campus. Shafik, in a letter to the college students regretted her decision to allow police in the campus but said that she had no other option left. She also added that the university has suspended 15 students and that anti-Semitism had no place in the campus.
“Anti-Semitism has no place on the campus and I am personally committed doing everything I can to confront it directly,” she said. Meanwhile some videos have surfaced on social media showing Indian origin students chanting slogans in favour of Palestine. The videos show a woman raising slogans for Palestine, as her fellow protestors chant “Azadi” in chorus.
“Arey hum kya chahte, Azadi, Palestine ki Azadi, arrey cheen ke lenge Azadi, hai haq hamara” (What do we want, freedom, Palestine’s freedom. We will snatch this freedom which is our right) the woman can be heard sloganeering in the video. The woman also raised slogans like Biden, sun le azadi, Netanyahu sun le azadi, Mod, sun le azadi and so on.
Azadi slogans were earlier raised in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). The JNU attracted much attention in 2016 when left leaning students staged protests commemorating the anniversary of the execution of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri terrorist convicted for his involvement in the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament.
Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Rep Ilhan Omar of Minnesota was amongst those arrested on Thursday from the campus. Hirsi is an organiser with the Columbia University Apartment Divest, a coalition of student organisation calling for Columbia to divest in Israel.
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