Cops arrive at Gaza protest as students refuse to budge
Police could begin arresting students at a pro-Palestine encampment after the protesters formed a human chain and refused to leave the Australian National University campus.
Students barricade the Gaza Solidarity encampment on the campus of the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, Monday, May 27, 2024. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)
Campus security at the university in Canberra directed students to remove their belongings and vacate the site on Monday, citing safety concerns.
But protesters have refused to leave, with encampment participants chanting at campus management staff and issuing a social media call for supporters from the community to join them and protect the camp.
Student protesters at Australian National University won’t dismantle their pro-Palestine encampment. (Bray Boland)
Roughly 100 people responded to the call by linking arms around the encampment and chanting for a free Palestine.
“Too many coppers, not enough justice,” they shouted.
Australian Federal Police officers have arrived at the site and, according to camp leaders, will begin arresting people if they do not leave.
Members of the negotiation team will meet with students in an attempt to encourage them to leave in accordance with the university’s directive.
“We are still in an observational capacity at the moment,” a police spokesman told AAP.
Asked if any arrests would be made, he said it “depends what happens”.
The escalation in the protest comes after students at the University of Melbourne and Curtin University in Western Australia packed up their own pro-Palestine encampments, citing a shift by the institutions on demands to publicly disclose ties with weapons makers.
The protests emulate demonstrations in the United States, where students were forced to dismantle their encampments after clashing with police.
The Australian National University maintains it has never directed its students to stop protesting, but that the encampment is posing safety issues.
It is located in a heavily populated part of the university that also acts as a primary emergency evacuation site.
The university said the alternate assembly area failed during an evacuation on Wednesday, posing an “intolerable risk to students, staff and wider public”.
“Everyone at ANU shares the same sense of responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of our community,” the university statement said.
“This directive is made to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our community.”
The ANU encampment is demanding the university cut ties with weapons manufacturing companies, disclose and divest from all entities complicit in the “genocide in Gaza”, and cut academic ties with Israel.
Students say the university’s administration has refused to meet with students or their mediation team.
“It is clear that the ANU is not interested in engaging in good faith with peaceful student protesters on the right side of history,” they said in a statement.
By Kat Wong and Bray Boland in Canberra/AAP
Privileged little upstarts, that’s all these so-called protesters are. Who are they to demand the uni. administration meet with them to discuss issues they stipulate? I hope admin. keep their resolve and leave it to the police to move them from the campus.