Pro-Palestinian student group says it staged demonstration to protest against university profiting from ‘imperialist violence’.
Dozens of pro-Palestinian activists have staged a protest at Columbia University in the United States.
Footage posted on social media showed demonstrators standing on tables, chanting and beating drums inside the university’s main library.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a pro-Palestinian student group, said it had occupied the library to protest the university’s links to Israel.
“Over 100 people have just flooded Butler Library and renamed it the Basel Al-Araj Popular University,” the group said on Substack, referring to the Palestinian activist and writer who was killed by Israeli forces in 2017.
“The flood shows that as long as Columbia funds and profits from imperialist violence, the people will continue to disrupt Columbia’s profits and legitimacy. Repression breeds resistance – if Columbia escalates repression, the people will continue to escalate disruptions on this campus.”
Columbia University’s acting president, Claire Shipman, condemned the demonstration as “completely unacceptable”.
University officials called police after demonstrators refused requests to provide identification and leave the building, Shipman said.
“Disruptions to our academic activities will not be tolerated and are violations of our rules and policies; this is especially unacceptable while our students study and prepare for final exams,” Shipman said in a statement.
“Columbia strongly condemns violence on our campus, antisemitism and all forms of hate and discrimination, some of which we witnessed today.”
Shipman said two Columbia Public Safety Officers sustained injuries when individuals attempted to force their way into the building.
The New York Police Department said in a statement that “multiple individuals who did not comply with verbal warnings” to disperse were taken into custody.
New York radio station 1010 WINS reported that around 80 demonstrators were arrested.
Columbia University, one of the top-ranked US universities, was the site of large demonstrations last year when student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza erupted on more than 100 campuses across the US.