Common Dreams reports: “The World Is Watching: UCLA Complicit in the Violence Against Its Own Students.”
CHIP GIBBONS, via Cody Bloomfield, cody@rightsanddissent.org, @RightsDissent
Gibbons is policy director at Defending Rights & Dissent, national civil liberties organization dedicated to protecting the right of political expression. The group just put out a statement condemning “the crackdown taking place across campuses in the United States. Across the country, we have seen protests calling for a ceasefire and end to Israel’s brutal war in Gaza. …
“These violent attacks on protesters have been accompanied by the spread of false information designed to demonize the protesters and facilitate the crackdown against them. …
“There is only one cause for the violence taking place. It is law enforcement and the officials who have chosen to resort to state violence when faced with peaceful protests. There is no justification for police violence against peaceful protests. And there is no excuse for the college administrators who willfully chose to call the police on their own students in order to suppress their expressive conduct. …
“It is true that the Supreme Court has not extended the First Amendment’s protections to overnight encampments. But as free speech advocates, we know the federal judiciary’s interpretation of the First Amendment sets the floor for free expression rights, not the ceiling. …
“Police violence has by no means been exclusively limited to occupations or tents. When students at the University of Texas, Austin held a protest that was clearly protected by the First Amendment, police were called. Police illegally arrested students, protesters, and a photojournalist. The false charges brought by the arresting officers were dropped the next day due to a lack of probable cause. This should make it all the more clear what the crackdown is about–suppressing speech of anti-war and pro-Palestine protesters. …
“There is obviously no equivalent between a Palestine solidarity protester setting up a tent on a campus quad and a police officer firing teargas at them. …
“As civil liberties advocates, we frequently hold minority positions. But it is impossible, when assessing the current crisis, not to note that while a majority of Americans support a ceasefire, a majority of elected officials in both parties remain firmly committed to sustaining Israel’s war. The disconnect between the people and the government helps to explain the degree of national panic about these peaceful student protests that is fueling a nationwide spree of police violence.”