Police dismantle pro-Palestinian encampment at University of Houston, arrest two students

Police moved quickly to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Houston on Wednesday, arresting at least two students, according to university officials.

Protesters had set up a blue tarp to cover the fields at the university’s Butler Plaza and surrounded the area with wooden barricades. They joined students across Texas and the country who are demanding that their schools divest from manufacturers that supply weapons to Israel during its strikes on Gaza.

(Here’s why UT and A&M are unlikely to divest from Israel)

Around 9 a.m. Wednesday, campus police dismantled the barricades and cut the tarp from under the protesters’ feet. At least two police officers were seen with riot shields, videos of the protest posted online showed.

One student was arrested for failing to identify himself and a second student was arrested for assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest, the university said.

“Tents and encampments are not permitted on campus per state law,” a university spokesperson wrote in a statement. “The group was allowed to continue their protest, consistent with UH policies.”

Once the encampment was emptied, protesters moved the demonstration to the front of the Harris County Joint Processing Center, where it appeared the arrested students had been taken. About a hundred people chanted and applauded passing cars whose drivers honked their horns in a sign of solidarity.

Bubbles were escaping from a small machine at one end of the crowd, separated in the middle by sheriff’s deputies standing outside the building’s entrance. A law enforcement officer appeared to photograph the crowd from down the block.

Outside the county building, UH student Reyna Valdez and other protesters said they planned to stay until the two arrested students were released. Valdez said she saw police tearing up tarps and pushing students away from where the encampment was located.

“We felt it was important to set up camp and show our university that we are serious about our demands that they divest from these gun manufacturers,” Valdez said. “It is incredibly disheartening that our university felt it was so important to respond to a peaceful encampment, but did not feel it was important to respond to the fact that it had invested in genocide.”

Protesters were also demanding that UH remove McDonald’s, Sabra and Starbucks franchises from campus because they claimed the companies allegedly financially supported Israel. Reyna said organizers are pushing for students to show up at a University of Houston System board meeting next week.

Protests on Texas campuses last month have already tested how they manage tensions over the war between Israel and Hamas and their commitment to free speech on campus. As pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli students engage in protests and heated discussions, school leaders struggle to balance their roles as moderators and facilitators of intellectual debate on campus.

At the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas at Dallas, law enforcement made more than 150 arrests during pro-Palestinian protests over the past two weeks. State, city and campus police broke up protests in Austin with pepper spray, batons and horses.

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus for higher education coverage.

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