Pro-Palestinian Protest: Dozens detained at Sorbonne Univ in Paris
French police detained 86 people following an operation to remove students staging a pro-Palestinian occupation at the Sorbonne university in Paris, prosecutors said yesterday.
Those arrested in the police operation on Tuesday night were being held for a variety of public order offences, said the statement.
They include willful damage, rebellion, violence against a person holding public authority, intrusion into an education establishment and holding a meeting designed to disrupt order. Some are also being held for participation in a group with a view to preparing violence or damage to property.
They can be held for an initial 24 hours, which can then be extended another 24 hours. The day before police moved in, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said there would never be a right to disrupt France's universities with such protests, reports AFP.
Police acted after about 100 students had been occupying a lecture theatre for two hours in "solidarity" with the people of Gaza, an AFP journalist on site noted.
Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian protesters were occupying a University of Amsterdam (UvA) site yesterday, a day after police clashed with protesters in the Dutch capital and broke up an earlier encampment at the university, reports Reuters.
Police said the UvA had not asked them to stop the protest, contrary to early on Tuesday when riot police used a bulldozer to knock down barricades at UvA and detained 169 people at a different campus.
In Washington, police cleared an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters at George Washington University yesterday, authorities said, making several pre-dawn arrests.
Just after 4:00 am (0800), hundreds of officers moved in on a university quad, making arrests and using pepper spray, the student-run GW Hatchet newspaper reported. CNN said around three dozen people were arrested.
Students at universities in several European countries have followed the actions on US campuses where demonstrators have occupied halls and facilities to demand an end to partnerships with Israeli institutions because of Israel's punishing assault on Gaza.
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