The pro-Palestinian demonstrations of university students reached the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, when this Tuesday hundreds of students gathered in the main area of the campus and replaced the United States flag, which is on the flagpole, to replace it with a flag of Palestine. Police officers arrested several students.
UNC-Chapel Hill Principal Lee Roberts attempted to calm and restore order after protesters in the school’s main courtyard, known as Polk Place, clashed with police officers from both the University and from the city.
WRAL News reported that students threw water at officers, blocked patrol cars by standing in front of them, while one of the protest organizers continued loudly yelling for companies to stop sending money to Israel.
They surrounded the flagpole holding hands
The situation escalated further when student protesters pulled down the American flag from the flagpole in the main courtyard of the University and raised a Palestinian flag in its place.
The young people stood around the flag holding hands so that the authorities could not remove the Palestinian flag. But the city police had to intervene to raise the American flag again.
“The antithesis of who we are”
Due to the great tension that existed at that time, where several media outlets gathered, officers arrested several students. Some others shouted: “disclose, do not invest, we will not stop, we will not rest.” The officers had to use pepper spray.
“Removing that flag and raising another one, no matter what other flag it is, is the antithesis of who we are, what this university represents and what we have done for 229 years,” Roberts told reporters.
“The vast majority of this campus knows how to express their views without shouting, without violating university policy. “The US flag will remain here as long as I am chancellor,” he argued.
Classes were suspended to prevent a more serious accident from occurring with students who were not at the demonstration.
They demanded the release of the detainees
Shortly after, the group of protesters walked towards the south building of the University, where the office of director Lee Roberts is located, in protest for their colleagues who had been arrested to demand their freedom.
WRAL News shared that students who were expelled from school later headed to the Orange County Detention Center to give their support to their detained classmates.
Alert Carolina! Adverse Conditions – Critical: UNC in Condition 2; 3-11:59pm today. Classes cancelled. Non-mandatory operations suspended. https://t.co/sLY3gL8DKY
— UNC-Chapel Hill (@UNC) April 30, 2024
Pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the country
On the other hand, Columbia University in New York, the first to begin the series of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, announced that after two weeks of the protesting students being in a camp on campus, they will begin to suspend them.
The University gave them until 2:00 in the afternoon on Monday, April 29, to remove the camp, otherwise they would be suspended until next year, but the students decided to keep it going.
On Monday, April 29, three students from the University of South Florida were arrested for demonstrating and starting a camp on campus. At Virginia Tech they joined the growing wave of anti-Israel protests calling for an end to the war in Gaza.
Students from universities in Georgia, Indiana, California and Texas are also protesting at their schools to end the war in Gaza. In Austin, the students were arrested by authorities.
Keep reading:
- Student protests against war in Gaza spread across the US
- Nearly a hundred people were arrested in pro-Palestinian protests at the University of Southern California
- Texas Governor Greg Abbott approves that pro-Palestinian student protesters should go to jail