NYU students joined hundreds of protesters at a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Union Square Tuesday, before the crowd of demonstrators made its way up Sixth Avenue in a citywide march. Some protesters eventually reached the Fashion Institute of Technology — the location of the last pro-Palestinian encampment protest on a New York City campus — where police later cleared the site and arrested around 50 protesters.
Speakers at the march criticized university administrations across New York City, including NYU, for allowing police to arrest protesters at similar on-campus demonstrations. The march came amid rising concerns over an impending Israeli invasion to the south of Gaza, in the city of Rafah.
Over 100 police officers in riot gear were carrying zip-ties as they followed the demonstration, where at least seven individuals were arrested and taken into New York City Police Department vans between 14th and 42nd Streets. Protesters took to the streets before moving to the sidewalk after NYPD officers said those marching in the street would be subject to arrest.
As the group gathered at Union Square, over a dozen NYPD vans and three correctional buses — which police previously used to transport arrested protesters from the Gaza Solidarity Encampment in Gould Plaza to the NYPD’s headquarters — were stationed outside of University Hall.
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The protest comes five days after around 14 students were arrested at a Gaza Solidarity Encampment outside the Paulson Center and over two weeks after 133 protesters were arrested at the encampment in Gould Plaza, including students and faculty. NYU’s administration has come under fire from student and faculty groups, as well as departmental leaders, for its decision to authorize the arrests of protesters at both locations.
Monday afternoon, around 100 students gathered outside Gould Plaza before marching down Lafayette Steet, demanding that NYU divest from companies with ties to Israel, shut down its study abroad site in Tel Aviv and pardon disciplinary action against students and faculty participating in pro-Palestinian activism. The march came immediately after NYU’s graduate student union held a rally in Washington Square Park, where it called on the university to remove police presence from campus.
Spokespeople for NYU and the NYPD did not respond to requests for comment.
Contact Dharma Niles and Yezen Saadah at [email protected].
