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
Greek coast guard search for 15 after migrant boat found adrift
- The two survivors reported that the vessel had become unstable due to bad weather and there was no means of getting shelter, food or water
ATHENS: Greek coast guard were on Monday searching for 15 people who fell into the water from a migrant boat that was found drifting off the coast of Crete with 17 bodies on board.
The 17 fatalities, all of them men, were discovered on Saturday on the craft, which was taking on water and partially deflated, some 26 nautical miles (48 kilometers) southwest of the island.
Post-mortem examinations were being carried out to determine how they died but Greek public television channel ERT suggested they may have suffered from hypothermia or dehydration.
A Greek coast guard spokeswoman told AFP that two survivors reported that “15 people fell in the water” after the motor cut out on Thursday, then the vessel drifted for two days.
At the time, Crete and much of the rest of Greece was battered by heavy rain and storms.
The two survivors reported that the vessel had become unstable due to bad weather and there was no means of getting shelter, food or water.
The vessel had 34 people on board and had left the Libyan port of Tobruk on Wednesday, the Greek port authorities said. Most of those who died came from Sudan and Egypt.
It was initially spotted by a Turkish-flagged cargo ship on Saturday, triggering a search that included ships and aircraft from the Greek coast guard and the European Union border agency Frontex.
Migrants have been trying to reach Crete from Libya for the last year, as a way of entering the European Union. But the Mediterranean crossing is perilous.
In Brussels, the EU’s 27 members on Monday backed a significant tightening of immigration policy, including the concept of returning failed asylum-seekers to “return hubs” outside the bloc.
The UN refugee agency said more than 16,770 asylum seekers in the EU have arrived on Crete since the start of the year — more than any other island in the Aegean Sea.
Greece’s conservative government has also toughened its migration policy, suspending asylum claims for three months, particularly those coming to Crete from Libya.
