Police clear pro-Palestinian camp in Wayne State

Critics of Wayne State University’s ties to Israel continued to protest Thursday morning, even after the university cleared a pro-Palestinian camp that had been set up there since late last week.

After the encampment was cleared at 5:30 a.m. Thursday, a group of about 50 protesters gathered on the sidewalk at Anthony Wayne Drive and Williams Mall to continue chanting, facing more than a dozen Wayne State Police officers in riot gear. The group began peacefully protesting around the block from the encampment on the lawn of State Hall at 8:15 a.m.

Four protesters were arrested, including one who broke away from the group and tried to remove the police tape. The reason for the arrest of the other three is unclear.

US Representative Rashida Tlaib, who is responsible for Detroit, joined the protesters around 8:30 a.m. and angrily confronted a police officer for ripping off a protester’s hijab, her headscarf.

“You ripped off your hijab? They’re just children!” she told the campus police. “… No amount of training will teach you not to take off your headscarf. Know the diversity of your campus.”

The camp was cleared early Thursday morning primarily for security reasons, university officials said.

Wayne State University President Kimberly Andrews Espy said university police told inmates to pack up their belongings and leave the building around 5:30 a.m. Police told inmates to leave the building and then deployed “an amplified sound system” to ensure the announcement was heard, a university spokesperson said.

“After ongoing consultations with the Board of Directors, university leadership and community leaders – and after many serious efforts to reach a different conclusion – this was the right time to take this necessary step,” Espy said in a statement Thursday morning.

Espy said the encampment has posed a legal, health and safety challenge to the university community, as well as an operational challenge, since it was established by protesters on May 23.

“The camp also created an atmosphere of exclusion – one in which some members of our campus community felt unwelcome and unable to fully participate in campus life,” Espy said.

Ali Hassan, chairman of the Muslim Coalition at Wayne State University, declined to comment on the camp’s evacuation until a press conference later that morning.

But Sahar Faraj, a Palestinian protester and Wayne State University graduate, urged protesters to take a closer look at university officials with direct ties to Israel. She said protesters continue to demand that university administration disclose the school’s investments in companies with ties to Israel.

Warehouse removed

By 7:40 a.m., there was no trace of the camp on the State Hall lawn except for a painted boulder reading “Free Palestine.”

One protester accused the university of sending police after visitors “at 5:30 a.m., when they were at their most vulnerable.”

Luay Abuelenain, 55, of Dearborn said his niece, wife and daughter were all arrested by Wayne State Police after the camp was cleared. His niece’s hijab was ripped off her head.

“Nobody is listening,” he said. “When is enough?”

Remote operation

Espy, meanwhile, said campus operations will continue to be remote on Thursday.

“We will announce tomorrow’s operations later today,” she said.

The group of protesters set up their camp on the lawn in front of Wayne State University’s State Hall on May 23. Just days earlier, a similar camp at the University of Michigan, which had been set up in late April, was cleared.

The Wayne State University protesters vowed to maintain the camp until the university met several demands, including full disclosure of its investments, including those in index funds not included in public reports; withdrawing from the SSgA S&P 500 index, which includes weapons manufacturers such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman and General Dynamics; and guaranteeing that no university police officers would travel to Israel as they did in 2019.

The protesters also said they wanted the university to develop policies to protect protesting students, provide legal and financial protection for Palestinian students, especially those with international visas, create scholarships and research grants for Palestinians and Gazans to study at WSU, and call for a ceasefire in Gaza and recognize that the United States and Israel are committing genocide against Palestinians.

Espy said that before the camp was cleared, university administrators contacted camp leaders and emphasized that the group was trespassing.

“In every conversation, we have reiterated that the residents have trespassed on university property and we have asked for the encampment to be cleared,” she said in a statement. “No individual or group is permitted to claim campus property for themselves and deny others access to that property.”

Related Posts

Friday Police Blotter | Effingham Radio

New Jersey drug counselor charged in drunk driving crash in LES that killed three people

Niger: Group claims responsibility for attack on China-backed pipeline and threatens further attacks