Listen to Raúl Ayrala's full report
Students of the Stanford University Joining a series of protests taking place at various educational institutions in the United States, students have gathered to demand that university authorities cut their financial ties with Israel due to its war with Hamas.
Raul Ayrala visited this camp where, Students are protesting Israel's attacks on Gaza; they are camping on the lawn of Stanford University's White Plaza, a space that the university itself has designated for protests and demonstrations.
There are 20 tents where students spend the day and night; the young people participate in various activities of what they call the People's University.
Camilo Pérez Bustillos, a Colombian and executive director of a national association of lawyers, was invited as a witness in the People's Tribunal that tried Stanford for its alleged complicity with Israel in what students call the genocide in Palestine.
"We think that the United States government, the Biden administration and his campaign are watching with great concern this wave of protests that have been defined as a new student uprising from coast to coast, in the most influential institutions, but also in the lesser known and more remote ones, in rural areas for example in northern California, in the states that will be decisive for the next election in November.”, This is what a participant said during an interview given to Ayrala.
On Friday, April 26, at 7:30 in the morning, five police officers traveling in a truck that said Sheriff and, below it, Stanford, watched the protesters while the police drank their coffee, but at 11:00 in the morning they had already left, without any intervention.
An organizer who is a member of the Justice for Palestine group and is currently studying law said Stanford has subtle ways of exerting pressure on its group in a gentle way, without resorting to violence.
"What we see at Stanford is that there is no police pressure, but there is administrative repression; the administration has a way of applying pressure against students, for example disciplining them or imposing penalties.", explained the organizer.
Most of them are vulnerable students who depend on the university for housing or even immigration status, as well as for financial or community aid.
The group of students is committed to staying at the university, so they did not want to give information on deadlines when asked how long they would remain at Plaza Blanca.
Other protests have taken place simultaneously in other universities, for example in the Columbia University in New York where there were 100 arrests, and Emory University in Atlanta where local police arrested 28 people and even used pepper bullets against members of the university.
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