Demonstrations in support of Gaza 36 arrested at Ohio University and a call for investigation by summoning the police

The American police arrested 36 people, including 16 at Ohio University who participated in demonstrations in support of Palestine against Israel, at a time when the Columbia University Council voted in favor of a resolution calling for an investigation into its administration, after the police summoned students in solidarity with the Gaza Strip.

With the expansion of student demonstrations at universities in solidarity with Palestine, the American police arrested 36 people, including 16 at Ohio University, while the Columbia University Council called for an investigation into the administration for summoning the police.

For nearly 10 days, American universities have witnessed massive demonstrations in solidarity with Gaza, which has been witnessing a devastating Israeli war for more than 200 days.

Ben Johnson, spokesman for Ohio University, said in press statements on Saturday that security forces arrested the students and other participants on charges of “entering the university campus without permission.”

He added that the arrest of the students and other demonstrators came after several warnings against the continuation of the demonstration and the camp they had set up inside the campus.

This comes in conjunction with scenes circulating on social media platforms about the presence of snipers on the roofs of buildings inside the university campus, whose administration announced that they were people from the state security directorate.

In turn, the Council of Columbia University voted in favor of a resolution calling for an investigation into the university administration, after it summoned the police to students in solidarity with the Gaza Strip, according to local media.

The New York Times reported, at dawn on Saturday, that the decision was approved by a majority of 62 votes, 14 against, and 3 abstentions.

The decision accuses the university administration of violating established protocols, undermining academic freedom and violating the due process rights of both students and professors.

The university's president, Nemat Shafik, was subjected to major criticism following her decision last week to summon the New York Police to the campus, which arrested more than 100 students in solidarity with Gaza, and also because of her previous testimony before Congress, in which university professors accused her of surrendering to the demands of Republicans in Congress regarding freedom of expression. Disciplining students and teachers.

On April 18, students who rejected the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip began a sit-in on the campus of Columbia University in New York, demanding that its administration stop its academic cooperation with Israeli universities and withdraw its investments in companies that support the occupation of Palestinian territories.

With the intervention of police forces and the arrest of dozens of students, the state of anger expanded and the demonstrations extended to dozens of universities in various parts of the United States, including leading universities such as Harvard, George Washington, New York, Yale, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and North Carolina.

Later, the unprecedented student movement in support of Palestine in the United States expanded to other universities in countries such as France, Britain, and Germany, all of which witnessed demonstrations in support of those known to American universities and demands to stop the war on Gaza and boycott the companies that supply weapons to Israel.