May 23, 2024
On Tuesday, May 21, Michigan State Police and DPSS raided the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. After a month of peaceful occupation of the Diag, police in riot gear used physical force and pepper spray to attack protestors at 5:45AM. As a result of Tuesday morning’s police-initiated violence, two protesters were hospitalized and four—including a fellow graduate worker—were detained at the Washtenaw County Jail. It is reprehensible that U-M Administrators would rather unleash police violence on their students than reconsider their active financial support for the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. We stand with all of the protesters detained for protesting our university’s bankrolling of genocide. Show solidarity with protesters by contacting President Ono and the University of Michigan Regents using the scripts provided at: bit.ly/UMRaidZap.
The administration’s claim in President Ono’s email titled “Ending the Encampment” that the violent crackdown was done to protect students is totally false. Since the encampment’s establishment on April 22, there were no incidents of violence on the Diag until Tuesday morning’s police intervention, during which dozens sustained injury due to the police’s inappropriately violent dispersal tactics. This has made what we already know abundantly clear: it is not protestors, but the administration that makes this campus unsafe for its students and workers.
Tuesday morning’s raid of the encampment is an extreme escalation of this administration’s ongoing use of police intimidation and violence to repress campus activism surrounding divestment. Working with Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit, they have brought felony charges against four protesters, including one graduate worker allegedly involved in the peaceful Ruthven sit-in on November 17. President Ono and the Regents’ refusal to accept multiple requests to meet with the TAHRIR coalition, instead opting to use police force and chemical weapons, is shameful. It is obvious and unacceptable that this administration has more interest in protecting U-M’s investments than its students. Research conducted by the TAHRIR coalition demonstrated that U-M’s endowment is materially linked to the ongoing genocide in Palestine, funding war and death in Gaza.
We stand with those who have been arrested and are facing unjust charges. We call on the Regents and President Ono to request any charges against pro-Palestine activists be dropped, including the four arrested on November 17 and the additional four arrested in Tuesday’s police raid. We demand that the Regents and President Ono hold an open meeting with the TAHRIR Coalition and the Gaza Solidarity Encampment to discuss the demands of immediate divestment, establishment of a People’s Audit, academic boycott, and abolition of campus police. Divest now!
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