Dozens of anti-Israel student protesters entered the City University Of New York Graduate Center’s library Tuesday night and renamed it after a university that was destroyed during the ongoing war in Gaza.
At the CUNY Grad Center, renamed the Al Aqsa University Library, in midtown Manhattan.A sizeable crowd is rallying in support of students ‘deoccupying’ inside. NYPD are allowing people to exit but not enter. Outside, NYPD are standing around, some just looking at their phones. pic.twitter.com/ob9LkmfIP4
— Talia Jane ❤️ (@taliaotg) May 15, 2024
The protesters hung Palestinian flags as well as banners and signs inside the Mina Rees Library on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue and gave it a new name “The Al Aqsa University Library” in what they believe was an act of protest against the colleges links to Israel and US support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
The Al Aqsa University Library which has been severely damaged due to Israel’s bombardment of the territory was the oldest public university in Gaza. After their act of protest, they claimed that they ‘de-occupied’ the building.
“Disclose. Divest. We will not stop, we will not rest,” the roughly three dozen students chanted as they stood and sat inside the building lobby, the New York Post said in a report. 50 protesters stood outside the doors of the public university but authorities blocked them from entering the premises.
The student protesters also read aloud the names of 94 Palestinian professors recently killed during the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
The student protesters said their act of protest was part of the push to demand CUNY divest $8.5 million from weapons, tech and surveillance companies “complicit in zionist settler-colonialism and genocide of the Palestinian people”.
“From New York to Palestine, protesting is not a crime,” they chanted in the lobby and demanded that the university drop all charges against students who were arrested during a police raid on a City College encampment.
CUNY Graduate Center President Joshua Brumberg met with the student protesters in the lobby and tried to negotiate a deal. The students said they would leave the building if he immediately, publicly backed amnesty for all pro-Palestinian protesters arrested at any CUNY demonstration and also grant amnesty to the protesters gathered in front of the library on Monday night.
Brumberg only agreed to grant amnesty to the protesters gathered in front of the library on Monday night. The police did not make any arrests.
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