MINNEAPOLIS: Police arrested an unknown number of pro-Palestinian protesters Monday at the University of Minnesota after a group of students briefly occupied an administrative building, protest organizers said.
The Monday afternoon protest prompted an alert from school officials: “Protesters have entered Morrill Hall on the East Bank, causing property damage and restricting entrance and exit from the building,” the alert said. “If you are currently in Morrill Hall and able to safely exit the building, please do so immediately. Others are advised to avoid this area until further notice.”
A university spokesperson said he had no further updates. He did not immediately respond to a query to confirm the arrests. A woman who answered the phone for the university police said she had no information to give out beyond the earlier notification.
Ryan Mattson, a media liaison with the university’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, said some protesters from the group who were inside the building were arrested. He did not know how many.
Students were still protesting, “just trying to find where our people are,” he said from the scene.
Merlin Van Alstein, an organizer with the group, earlier said about 30 protesters occupied Morrill Hall, with a larger group gathered outside.
The group renamed the building “Halimy Hall,” in remembrance of 19-year-old Palestinian TikTok creator Medo Halimy who died in August in an apparent Israeli airstrike. The Israeli military said it was not aware of the strike that killed Halimy.
The protesters were equipped with tents and supplies, and said they planned to stay until their demands are met. They were demanding that the university divest from Israel and repeal its political neutrality agreement. Video posted online showed chairs stacked in front of an exterior door of the building, in an apparent barricade.
“We plan to stay until they forcibly remove us,” Van Alstein said before the arrests. “The people inside aren’t going to leave until they meet our demands or they are forced to leave.”
The group earlier shared a video to Facebook of a speaker’s announcement that its members were occupying the building but not restricting anyone from exiting or entering.
The speaker appeared in front of a large sign reading, “Money for education, not for bombs & occupation.” Other campus protests around the US in response to the Israel-Hamas war have included the divestmentcall.
The protests, including earlier this year at University of Minnesota campuses, raised issues of free speech and antisemitism as students demanded that their universities cease doing business with Israel or companies they said supported the war in Gaza.
The university’s homecoming week began Monday.
Pro-Palestinian protesters arrested after occupying building at University of Minnesota
https://arab.news/r3mn4
Pro-Palestinian protesters arrested after occupying building at University of Minnesota
- The protesters were equipped with tents and supplies, and said they planned to stay until their demands are met
Greenland crisis boosts Danish apps designed to identify and help boycott US goods
- Boycott campaigns are usually short-lived and real change often requires an organized effort rather than individual consumers
COPENHAGEN: The makers of mobile apps designed to help shoppers identify and boycott American goods say they saw a surge of interest in Denmark and beyond after the recent flare-up in tensions over US President Donald Trump’s designs on Greenland.
The creator of the “Made O’Meter” app, Ian Rosenfeldt, said he saw around 30,000 downloads of the free app in just three days at the height of the trans-Atlantic diplomatic crisis in late January out of more than 100,000 since it was launched in March.
Apps offer practical help
Rosenfeldt, who lives in Copenhagen and works in digital marketing, decided to create the app a year ago after joining a Facebook group of like-minded Danes hoping to boycott US goods.
“Many people were frustrated and thinking, ‘How do we actually do this in practical terms,’” the 53-year-old recalled. “If you use a bar code scanner, it’s difficult to see if a product is actually American or not, if it’s Danish or not. And if you don’t know that, you can’t really make a conscious choice.”
The latest version of “Made O’Meter” uses artificial intelligence to identify and analyze several products at a time, then recommend similar European-made alternatives. Users can set preferences, like “No USA-owned brands” or “Only EU-based brands.” The app claims over 95 percent accuracy.
“By using artificial intelligence, you can take an image of a product … and it can make a deep dive to go out and find the correct information about the product in many levels,” Rosenfeldt told The Associated Press during a demonstration at a Copenhagen grocery store. “This way, you have information that you can use to take decisions on what you think is right.”
‘Losing an ally’
After an initial surge of downloads when the app was launched, usage tailed off. Until last month, when Trump stepped up his rhetoric about the need for the US to acquire Greenland, a strategically important and mineral-rich Arctic island that is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark.
Usage peaked Jan. 23, when there were almost 40,000 scans in one day, compared with 500 or so daily last summer. It has dropped back since but there were still around 5,000 a day this week, said Rosenfeldt, who noted “Made O’Meter” is used by over 20,000 people in Denmark but also by people in Germany, Spain, Italy, even Venezuela.
“It’s become much more personal,” said Rosenfeldt, who spoke of “losing an ally and a friend.”
Trump announced in January he would slap new tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries that opposed his takeover calls, only to abruptly drop his threats after he said a “framework” for a deal over access to mineral-rich Greenland was reached with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s help. Few details of that agreement have emerged.
The US began technical talks in late January to put together an Arctic security deal with Denmark and Greenland, which say sovereignty is not negotiable.
Rosenfeldt knows such boycotts won’t damage the US economy, but hopes to send a message to supermarkets and encourage greater reliance on European producers.
“Maybe we can send a signal and people will listen and we can make a change,” he added.
The protest may be largely symbolic
Another Danish app, “NonUSA,” topped 100,000 downloads at the beginning of February. One of its creators, 21-year-old Jonas Pipper, said there were over 25,000 downloads Jan. 21, when 526 product scans were performed in a minute at one point. Of the users, some 46,000 are in Denmark and around 10,000 in Germany.
“We noticed some users saying they felt like a little bit of the pressure was lifted off them,” Pipper said. “They feel like they kind of gained the power back in this situation.”
It’s questionable whether such apps will have much practical effect.
Christina Gravert, an associate professor of economics at the University of Copenhagen, said there are actually few US products on Danish grocery store shelves, “around 1 to 3 percent”. Nuts, wines and candy, for example. But there is widespread use of American technology in Denmark, from Apple iPhones to Microsoft Office tools.
“If you really want to have an impact, that’s where you should start,” she said.
Even “Made O’Meter” and “NonUSA” are downloaded from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store.
Gravert, who specializes in behavioral economics, said such boycott campaigns are usually short-lived and real change often requires an organized effort rather than individual consumers.
“It can be interesting for big supermarket brands to say, OK, we’re not going to carry these products anymore because consumers don’t want to buy them,” she said. “If you think about large companies, this might have some type of impact on the import (they) do.”
On a recent morning, shoppers leaving one Copenhagen grocery store were divided.
“We do boycott, but we don’t know all the American goods. So, it’s mostly the well-known trademarks,” said Morten Nielsen, 68, a retired navy officer. “It’s a personal feeling … we feel we do something, I know we are not doing very much.”
“I love America, I love traveling in America,” said 63-year-old retiree Charlotte Fuglsang. “I don’t think we should protest that way.”
