Staff and students participated in a walk-out from the University of Groningen’s city centre location and joined a pro-Palestine encampment that was set up in front of the university’s Harmony building.
Student protests against the slaughter of civilians in Palestine have been taking place over several weeks around the world including in Amsterdam and in Ghent. Protests by students at the University of Amsterdam featured heavily in the media, particularly due to the violence police used against the protesters whom the university accuses of causing €1.5 million in damages.
Groningen
The RUG’s flag in front of the Harmony building was taken down and a Palestinian flag was raised in its place. The protests were peaceful and involved students waving placards and writing pro-Palestine messages on the square in chalk. There was plenty of slogan chanting with shouts of “Free Palestine” and “end complicity” being heard in Groningen’s city centre.
There were a number of police officers present, to which the protesters responded with “cops off campus” slogans. While The Northern Times was present, the police kept their distance from protestors but were spotted filming them at several points.
But it wasn’t just students joining the protest, staff members were also present and delivered a statement at around noon on Monday:
“As of today we have reclaimed the campus and will remain until our demands are met,” one staff member said.
“There is no business as usual in the face of genocide,” she added.,
“As students and staff of this institution, it is our responsibility to stand against our complicity in genocide. We refuse to accept a world where the death of more than 44,000 Palestinians is normal, acceptable, or profitable,” she said.
The protestors’ demands include the RUG fully complying with a Freedom of Information case to disclose all the university’s ties with Israeli institutions and to boycott the institutions “which have been proven to be participating in the genocide, apartheid, and exploitation of Palestinian people”. They made a similar demand for the RUG to divest contracts with Israeli companies doing the same.
Besides this, there were speeches about the plight of women in Iran and expressions of solidarity with the Iranian and Kurdish liberation movements.
The Northern Times asked several protesters about the day’s events but they declined to comment.
