Dozens of student protesters at Brown University were arrested, and a weeklong sit-in at Haverford College ended Wednesday under threat of disciplinary action as US college campuses continue to be roiled by tensions over the Israel-Hamas war.
Brown’s police department charged 41 students with trespass when they refused to leave the University Hall administrative building after business hours on Monday, according to officials at the Ivy League school in Providence, Rhode Island.
Earlier that day, protesters had met with Brown President Christina H. Paxson and demanded that Brown divest “its endowment from Israeli military occupation,” the school said in a statement on the arrests. Students were photographed and fingerprinted at the administration building before their release Monday night. Other students waited outside to cheer them on.
It was the second round of arrests at Brown in a little over a month as college administrators around the country try to reconcile the rights of students to protest with the schools’ imperative to maintain order.
Twenty students protesting Israel’s invasion of Gaza were arrested for trespass on Nov. 8, although Brown dropped the charges on Nov. 27, two days after a Palestinian student at Brown, Hisham Awartani, and two other Palestinian college students were shot in Burlington, Vermont.
Brown said Wednesday that while protest is “a necessary and acceptable means of expression on campus,” students may not “interfere with the normal functions of the University.” The school warned of even more severe consequences if students fail to heed restrictions on the time, place and manner of protests.
“The disruption to secure buildings is not acceptable, and the University is prepared to escalate the level of criminal charges for future incidents of students occupying secure buildings,” Brown said.
At Haverford, outside Philadelphia, student activists began their sit-in on Dec. 6 and occupied Founders Hall, which houses administrative offices. They are demanding that college President Wendy Raymond publicly call for a cease-fire in Gaza, which Israel invaded after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants.
Hundreds of students participated over the last week, taking deliveries of food and setting up study spaces. Professors even dropped in to teach, according to student organizers.
The college asserted that the protesters were hindering fellow students, staff and faculty, and told the sit-in organizers Tuesday night that “they must discontinue actions that impede student learning and the functions of the College, which include the sit-in inside Founders Hall,” Raymond and the college dean said in a campus message Wednesday morning.
Student organizers told The Associated Press that college officials threatened to haul protesters before a disciplinary panel if they didn’t leave the hall. About 50 students defied the warning and slept in the building overnight before protesters held one last rally Wednesday morning and delivered letters to Raymond before disbanding.
The threat of discipline played a role in the decision to end the sit-in, according to Julian Kennedy, a 21-year-old junior and organizer with Haverford Students for Peace. But he said organizers also concluded that the sit-in would not compel Haverford to meet the group’s demands.
“At this point, we just see that this college as an institution is broken and has lost its values,” said Kennedy, accusing Haverford of betraying its Quaker pacifist roots.
Ellie Baron, a 20-year-old junior and protest organizer, said the group will pressure Haverford in other ways.
“Just because the sit-in is over, doesn’t mean our efforts are over. We are extraordinarily upset our president refuses to call for a cease-fire,” Baron said.
A Palestinian American student at Haverford, Kinnan Abdalhamid, was also among the three Palestinian college students who were shot over Thanksgiving break in Vermont. The suspected gunman was arrested and has pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder. Officials are investigating whether the shooting, which seriously injured one of the other students, was a hate crime.
Abdalhamid, who took part in Wednesday’s rally, said in a statement that “our presence here is a powerful message that we will not stay silent, we will not be passive observers.”
The arrests and sit-in came amid continuing fallout over the testimony given by leaders of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and MIT at a congressional hearing on antisemitism last week. The presidents drew fire for carefully worded responses to a line of questioning from New York Republican Elize Stefanik, who repeatedly asked whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate the schools’ rules. Penn’s president resigned over the weekend while, at Harvard, the governing board declared its support for the school’s embattled president.
Israel-Hamas war tensions roil campuses; Brown protesters are arrested, Haverford building occupied
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Israel-Hamas war tensions roil campuses; Brown protesters are arrested, Haverford building occupied
- It was the second round of arrests at Brown in a little over a month as college administrators around the country try to reconcile the rights of students to protest with the schools’ imperative to maintain order
Azerbaijan takes control of four villages on border with Armenia as part of deal
- Armenia had said in April it would return the uninhabited villages to Azerbaijan, which both sides said was a milestone on the road toward a peace deal
- Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan's decision to hand over the four villages has triggered protests at home, with demonstrators calling for him to step down
MOSCOW: Azerbaijan’s border service has taken control of four villages in the Gazakh district on the border with Armenia under an agreement struck with Yerevan, Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev said on Friday.
The size of the territory returned to Azerbaijan under a border delimitation agreement on Friday was 6.5 square kilometers (2.5 square miles), Mustafayev said.
Armenia had said in April it would return the uninhabited villages to Azerbaijan, which both sides said was a milestone on the road toward a peace deal between Yerevan and Baku who have clashed for more than three decades.
The decision by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to hand over the four villages has triggered protests at home, with demonstrators calling for him to step down over what they cast as a betrayal.
Pashinyan, in an address to the nation late on Friday, described at length how Armenians had long sought a homeland within a specific geographic area and how demarcating national borders was part of that process.
He said the aim of all Armenians was to act “so that a sovereign and democratic Armenia with demarcated borders becomes a national ideology and concept.”
Azerbaijan’s retaking by force of the entirety of its Nagorno-Karabakh region in September last year, a move which sparked an exodus of ethnic Armenians living there, dealt a painful blow to Yerevan.
But it has also paved the way for an elusive deal by removing a long-running source of disagreement from the table.
Azerbaijan and Armenia still have other unresolved territorial disputes though, mostly focused on enclaves which the two sides want the other party to relinquish control of or provide access to.
Chile firefighter arrested, accused of starting February blaze that killed 137
- Local media reported the firefighter is a 22-year-old who joined the force a year and a half ago
SANTIAGO: A firefighter was arrested Friday in Chile on suspicion of starting a blaze in February that killed 137 people in the resort city of Vina del Mar, authorities said.
“An arrest warrant was issued today against the person who started the fires in February in the Valparaiso region,” where Vina del Mar is located, police director Eduardo Cerna told a news conference.
Several fires broke out simultaneously on February 2 around the coastal city of Vina del Mar, 70 miles (110 kilometers) northwest of Chile’s capital Santiago.
The inferno was fueled by winds and a heatwave that saw temperatures of around 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).
Local media reported the firefighter is a 22-year-old who joined the force a year and a half ago.
“We are completely devastated by what happened, it is a totally isolated incident... we have served Valparaiso for more than 170 years and cannot allow such things,” Vicente Maggiolo, commander of the 13th Fire Company of the city of Valparaiso, told reporters.
Putin says Ukraine’s Zelensky lacks legitimacy after term expired
- With Ukraine under martial law in the third year of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Zelensky has not faced elections
- Putin won a new six-year term in March in a closely managed election that Russia’s opposition called a sham
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had no legitimacy following the expiry of his five-year term and this would raise a legal obstacle if Russia and Ukraine were to hold peace talks.
With Ukraine under martial law in the third year of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Zelensky has not faced elections despite the expiry of his five-year term this week — something he and Ukraine’s allies deem the right decision in wartime.
Putin is ready to halt the war in Ukraine with a negotiated ceasefire that recognizes the current battlefield lines, Reuters reported on Friday, citing four Russian sources, but is ready to fight on if Kyiv and the West do not respond.
At a televised press conference during a visit to Belarus, Putin said Zelensky’s status was problematic.
“But who to negotiate with? That’s not an idle question... Of course we realize the legitimacy of the incumbent head of state is over,” he said.
Ukrainian officials dismiss any notion of Zelensky lacking legitimacy in a time of war.
Ruslan Stefanchuk, speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, said this week that anyone questioning the president’s legitimacy was an “enemy of Ukraine” spreading false information.
Putin said the West would use a Swiss-hosted conference on the war, due to take place next month, to endorse Zelensky’s legitimacy but these would be “PR steps” with no legal meaning.
He said peace should be worked out through common sense, not ultimatums. It should be based on draft documents that were worked out between the two sides in the early weeks of the war, and on “today’s realities on the ground” — a reference to the fact that Russia controls nearly 20 percent of Ukraine.
“If it gets to that point, we will need of course to understand who we should and can deal with, to arrive at signing legally binding documents. And then we must be fully sure we are dealing with legitimate (Ukrainian) authorities,” Putin said.
Putin won a new six-year term in March in a closely managed election that Russia’s opposition called a sham.
Two anti-war candidates were barred from running on technical grounds, and all Russia’s leading opposition figures are in jail or abroad. The best known, Alexei Navalny, died in February in an Arctic penal colony.
Putin’s comments are likely to be taken by Ukraine and its Western allies as further evidence that he has no real intention of entering peace talks, despite frequently stating his willingness to negotiate.
Peace summit
Zelensky, in his nightly video address, made no reference to the Russian president’s remarks, but said Putin was determined to scuttle next month’s peace summit.
“He is afraid of what the summit may produce. The world is capable of forcing Russia into peace and compliance with international security norms,” Zelensky said.
“Russia has nothing to counter the world majority. The peace summit is a formula that will allow Putin to lie no longer.”
Russia is not invited to the summit in Switzerland and has dismissed the event as meaningless without its participation.
Zelensky has repeatedly said peace on Putin’s terms is a non-starter. He has vowed to retake lost territory, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. He signed a decree in 2022 that formally declared any talks with Putin “impossible.”
The head of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate, Kyrylo Budanov, warned in February that Russia would pursue a campaign aimed at undermining the legitimacy of both Zelensky and Ukraine’s political system.
Israeli private eye accused of hacking was questioned about DC public affairs firm, sources say
- Private investigator Amit Forlit was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport on April 30 over American cybercrime and wire fraud charges
WASHINGTON: An Israeli private investigator sought by the United States over hack-for-hire allegations previously told colleagues that he had been questioned by FBI agents over his work for the Washington public affairs firm DCI Group, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Federal law enforcement’s interest in DCI, which has not been previously reported, shows a years-long US probe into cybermercenary activity is wider than publicly known.
The FBI declined to comment. DCI, a public relations firm that has worked on behalf of hedge funds and multinationals, said in a written statement that “we direct all our employees and consultants to comply with the law.”
Private investigator Amit Forlit was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport on April 30 over American cybercrime and wire fraud charges.
Prosecutors in London said only that Forlit engaged in a “hack for hire scheme” on behalf of several clients, including an unidentified Washington-based PR and lobbying firm. He was released two days after his arrest following a procedural error by British authorities.
He was rearrested on Thursday on the same charges and has since been released on bail, according to Britain’s National Crime Agency and a London court register published Friday.
The register said Forlit surrendered his passport and was ordered not to leave the country. The 56-year-old’s lawyers did not return repeated messages.
In a deposition made public in 2022, Forlit said, “I’ve never commissioned hacking and never paid for hacking.” Reuters revealed the existence of an FBI investigation into the cybermercenary industry in 2020.
The only person known to have been convicted in connection with the inquiry, Israeli private investigator Aviram Azari, was given a 6 2/3 year sentence last year.
Forlit acknowledged in his deposition that Azari had done work on his behalf. Privately, he expressed concern that he was being sought by American law enforcement following Azari’s arrest, according to three associates. The associates said Forlit told them he arranged a meeting with FBI officials in the US embassy in London in late 2021 to gauge whether he would be arrested if he visited the United States.
It was at that meeting that the FBI quizzed him about his work for DCI, they said. The associates spoke on condition of anonymity to relay the content of private conversations.
Forlit is separately being sued in New York federal court by aviation executive Farhad Azima, who accuses the Israeli of being party to the theft of his emails in 2016. He denies the allegations.
A review of court records tied to Azima’s litigation shows that Forlit had business with DCI.
A Citibank document made public in August 2022 as part of Azima’s discovery effort in Florida shows Forlit’s company, then known as SDC-Gadot, listed DCI Group as one of its three “major customers.” Citibank declined to comment on the document.
NYC college suspends officer who told pro-Palestinian protester ‘I support killing all you guys’
- An unidentified protester filmed the officer at Thursday’s graduation for the College of Staten Island, part of the public City University of New York system that was rocked by a recent police crackdown on campus protests
NEW YORK: A campus safety officer at a public college in New York City has been suspended after footage circulated online showing him cursing at pro-Palestinian protesters during a graduation ceremony and saying he supported killing them all, the school confirmed Friday.
An unidentified protester filmed the officer at Thursday’s graduation for the College of Staten Island, part of the public City University of New York system that was rocked by a recent police crackdown on campus protests.
In a highly edited video shared by Instagram accounts affiliated with student protest organizers, a demonstrator can be heard yelling at the officer, “You support genocide!”
“Yes I do, I support genocide,” says the officer. “I support killing all you guys, how about that?”
In another clip posted in the video, the officer can be heard hurling an expletive at another protester, followed by “your mother.”
Phone calls and emails seeking comment from the officer on Friday were unsuccessful. A person who answered a number listed under his name hung up when a reporter identified themself, and emails were not immediately returned.
CUNY confirmed the suspension Friday but declined to provide details, such as whether the officer was on paid leave.
“We condemn the offensive language used by a CUNY officer,” College of Staten Island spokesperson David Pizzuto said in a statement. “His words don’t reflect the values of the College of Staten Island or the 50 officers on our Public Safety staff. The officer has been suspended pending a full review of the incident, and we will take further action as appropriate.”
Protest camps sprang up across the US and in Europe as students demand their universities stop doing business with Israel or companies that support its war efforts. Organizers seek to amplify calls to end Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which they describe as a genocide against the Palestinians.
The United Nations’ top court ordered Israel on Friday to immediately halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, but stopped short of ordering a ceasefire for entire Palestinian territory. The International Court of Justice has said there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies.
