The protests in support of Palestine continue to spread Europe. Weeks after several mobilizations began on various university campuses in the US, where the Police have detained thousands of people, young people from countries such as Spain, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, France or the Netherlands have joined together to call for an end to the offensive Israel over the Gaza Strip.
Two weeks ago, The demonstrations moved from American universities to French ones, where hundreds of students occupied Sciences Po and Sorbonne Universities. Likewise, in the United Kingdom and Australia, groups of young people also mobilized to protest against the Israeli war.
Thus, protests began to emerge last week in cities in other countries, including Valencia, the first Spanish town to host a student camp. Now, since this Monday, new demonstrations have been registered that They call for an end to the “genocide” and occupation in Gaza.
Spain
Camping in Valencia
The Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Valencia (UV) has been the scene of a week solidarity camp with Palestine. The initiative, which is part of the BDS PaÃs Valencià social movement, demands the “end of the genocide in Gaza”, but also the cessation of agreements between universities and institutions with any company or organization in Israel that finances this “apartheid“.
“It’s been a whole week now, Eight days of camping have passed and even today we still have no response from the UV“, one of the students participating in the protest assured EFE, adding that their demands are public and are “well known” by the University. As he explains, although the UV sent a statement to the media communication, he has not addressed them and they hope that throughout this week he will contact them.
From the University of Valencia they have reported that they are “working on a possible meeting date” with the members of the camp. Furthermore, they have clarified that UV “does not have agreements with universities in Israelcontrary to what happens in American and French universities”.
Camping in Madrid
Some 200 Madrid university students gathered this Tuesday near the campus of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and they have started an indefinite camping trip. Shouting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will win” the students have demanded the Breaking of relations between Spain and Israel the end of the arms trade and the disengagement of Spanish universities with this country.
Likewise, they have demanded “the end of the persecution and criminalization of all solidarity with the Palestinian people.” As the spokespersons of the Student Assembly have pointed out, An indefinite camp “is the only way” for their proclamations to be heard. In this sense, they have charged against the president of the United States, Joe Biden, for “siding on the side of Zionism and repressing the students who are mobilizing.”
Already this Monday, students of the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) have joined the protests against the “genocide” in Gaza to demand “its end.” They have also criticized the “complicity” of the Government of Spain and the “ties” of university centers with “arms companies.”
Camping in Barcelona
Others to join this movement have been the students of the University of Barcelona (UB). This Monday afternoon, about 300 students They have entered the Historic Building in the University Square and have camped to support Palestine. Previously, the young people, who intend to camp until Wednesday, had gathered in front of the faculty in the Raval with a banner with the text ‘Against the genocide of the Palestinian people’.
Before the camping trip, the students have organized a protest rally held at the Raval campus of the UB, in which the spokespersons of the participating entities have read the manifesto, signed by the organizing committee and the ‘Universitats amb Palestine’ association. The Student Committee has demanded that Catalan public universities “break institutional and academic relations” with universities, research centers, companies and other Israeli institutions.
Camping in the Basque Country and Navarra
In the north of Spain, camping has been underway on the campuses of Vitoria, San Sebastián and Leioa (Bizkaia) of the Basque Public University, as well as at the Public University of Navarra in Pamplona convened by the student union Ikasle Abertzaleak. The UPV/EHU campus in Ibaeta in favor of Palestine has a program that includes a “claim photography”, food and a ‘jam session.
Germany
In Germany, the Berlin Police this Tuesday evicted a group of pro-Palestinian protesters who had occupied a patio of the Free University (FU) and had set up a camp of protest. “The university ordered the eviction and called the police. This form of protest is not aimed at dialogue. An occupation by the university is not acceptable. We are willing to dialogue but not in this form,” said the university rector , Günter Ziegler.
According to the center, the protesters They also tried to access the classrooms to occupy them and caused material damage on the campus, for which he has filed a criminal complaint. Classes had to be interrupted in three buildings of the institution, while the libraries and the university canteen in the affected area were temporarily closed.
The FU has been criticized in recent months for not forcefully confronting cases of antisemitism related to the current situation in the Gaza Strip, given that Last weekend a Jewish student was beaten and taken to the hospital. The Circle of Christian Democratic Students (RCDS) has called for the resignation of the university leadership for not having reacted in a timely manner to outbreaks of anti-Semitism.
Swiss
The protests by pro-Palestinian students in Switzerland, which began on May 2 at the University of Lausanne (UNIL), They have been extended this Tuesday to the Geneva and Zurich campuses, The latter city where the Police have intervened to evict young people who staged a sit-in at the Federal Polytechnic University (EPFZ).
After five days of gatherings of hundreds of students in one of UNIL’s main buildings, which the rector’s office tried to put an end to without success, Similar protests have begun, so far involving a few dozen young people. They have been registered at the polytechnic universities of Zurich and Lausanne (EPFL), the two most prestigious in the country, and the University of Geneva (UNIGE).
The most tense moments of these sit-ins were experienced this Tuesday in Zurich, where the municipal police, accompanied by special forces and negotiators, evicted 28 protesters who in some cases exercised passive resistance and they had to be carried away by agents. In Geneva, members of the Palestinian Student Coordinator collective have occupied the UniMail building, one of the most important on the UNIGE campus, waiting to negotiate with the rectorate regarding the development of these protests.
Belgium
Belgian cities also host Palestinian protests: more than a hundred students They camp at Ghent University, in a broader claim that also calls for environmental improvements. The objective is to pressure the center to “cut off relations with Israeli institutions”, because, according to Joelle, a 25-year-old student and spokesperson for the movement, it is “complicit in the genocide that is being carried out in Gaza.”
“So far, we are mitigating any security problems,” said Joelle, distancing herself from the scenes seen in the US, where the police have broken up protests by force. “The context of each country is always different”, the student pointed out. The intention was to maintain the protest for three days, until this Wednesday, but the students have changed their minds. “We have decided to maintain the occupation until our demands are met,” Joelle said.
The protests, which this Tuesday have also spread to the Free University of Brussels, focus only on links with other Israeli centers, but not on the Belgian Government, one of those that has raised its voice the most in favor of Palestine since the start of the war in Gaza. “We Europeans will bear the consequences. In ten years they will tell us: ‘you looked and did nothing,’ Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said this Monday in an interview with the newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws.
Netherlands
For its part, the Dutch Police He arrested 125 people this Tuesday in a performance that ended a camping trip that was taking place at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). The agents continue to be present around the Roerterseiland campus, one of the four that the UvA has and home to the faculties of Law, Social Sciences, Economics and Business.
The city council of Amsterdam, together with the Police and the Prosecutor’s Office, decided this morning that the protest camp that began on Monday had to be evacuated because it represented a crime of “violation of property”. The university itself asked the protesters several times to leave since last night, without them agreeing to erect the tents installed on the campus in protest of the war in Gaza.
Finally, the agents decided to intervene, according to the Police, after several people They will launch fireworks at them. Dozens of people were forcibly removed from the campus, while protesters clung to each other, according to images published by public television NOS. The police described these images as “intense” and assured that the intervention was necessary to “restore order.”
