Protests targeting Israel’s involvement in the Israel-Hamas conflict led to arrests on the MIT campus. Eight people were taken into custody by the MIT Campus Police for allegedly blocking a campus parking garage as part of their protest. They were demonstrating against MIT’s ongoing research contracts with Israel’s Ministry of Defense, calling for their termination. MIT Police reports note the arrest occurred last Thursday.
The move to block the parking garage entrance was a strategy aimed at eliciting an immediate response from the college administrators, causing the academic institution to raise an alert. They claimed that the protest had significantly impacted campus safety and life. AP News reports that both the Campus Police and Cambridge Police intervened to disperse the protestors from the area, managing to reopen the garage by 5 p.m.
Hannah Didehbani, a MIT student and leader of the protest, has faced school consequences such as a suspension and an eviction notice. Nevertheless, she remained undeterred, stating that the blockage was fundamentally about drawing attention to MIT’s collaboration with the Israeli military and asserting that suspensions could not halt protest movements.
The rise in tension is noticeable not merely on the MIT campus, but nationwide, as a growing number of such protests and subsequent police responses are witnessed. Recent protests against the Israel-Hamas war have seen over 2,800 people detained by local or campus police. The arrested include 118 protestors at Emerson College; 52 students at Yale University; 9 at the University of Minnesota and more than 200 students at Columbia University, according to the data from NY Times.
The complete story can be found on Jurist.