Demonstrations, Protests and Riots

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      G.O.P. Asks Secret Service to Move Protesters Away From Convention Venue

      by

      The Republican Party sent a letter to the Secret Service on Friday urging the police agency to keep protesters farther away from the venue for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July.The three-page letter, signed by Todd R. Steggerda, counsel to the Republican National Committee, objected to the placement of an area where protesters would be allowed to demonstrate. Mr. Steggerda argued that convention attendees would be forced to pass by the protesters on their way into the venue, raising the potential for confrontations.“As recent college and university campus clashes make plain,” Mr. Steggerda wrote in the letter obtained by The New York Times, “forced proximity heightens tensions among peaceful attendees and demonstrators of differing ideologies and increases the risk of escalation to verbal, or even physical, clashes.”Hundreds of people have been arrested in a recent wave of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, but there have been no reports of significant violence by those demonstrators.Students and community members protested outside Coffman Memorial Union at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis this week.Jenn Ackerman for The New York TimesUnder the security plan proposed by the Secret Service, according to the letter, protesters will be confined to Pere Marquette Park, a small public park on the bank of the Milwaukee River about a quarter of a mile from Fiserv Forum — the arena that is home to the Milwaukee Bucks of the N.B.A. and that is hosting the convention. The letter adds that the two main routes to the arena designated by the Secret Service are adjacent to the park, which would force those heading to the convention to pass by it.“Packing demonstrators into a park essentially boxed in by the two streets that thousands of attendees will be using to enter the convention site will only serve to heighten — rather than prevent and diffuse — any tension,” Mr. Steggerda wrote.Alexi Worley, a spokeswoman for the Secret Service, said in a statement that the agency “is not formally in receipt” of the letter, adding, “If a letter is received, the Secret Service will respond through appropriate channels.” The copy of the letter obtained by The Times was addressed to Kimberly A. Cheatle, the director of the Secret Service, “via hand delivery.”Ms. Worley added that security plans for events like the Republican National Convention are “developed and approved through an executive steering committee made up of representatives from the Secret Service, as well as supporting federal, state and local agencies.”The R.N.C. did not propose an alternative location for the demonstration zone in the letter, instead suggesting that the Secret Service expand the security perimeter to move protesters away from the area. More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      A Dispatch From Inside Columbia’s Student-Led Protest for Gaza

      by

      On Wednesday morning, on a corner across the street from Columbia University, a man dressed in black, a huge gold cross around his neck, brandished a sign that featured a bloodstained Israeli flag and the word “genocide” in capital letters. He was also shouting at the top of his lungs.“The Jews control the world! Jews are murderers!”I watched as a pro-Palestine protester approached the man. “That is horribly antisemitic,” she said. “You are hurting the movement and you are not a part of us. Go away.”The man shouted vile, unprintable epithets back at her, but the woman, who told me she had come to New York from her home in Baltimore to support the protesting students, walked away.Hours later, a well-known congressional reporter covering House Speaker Mike Johnson’s visit to Columbia’s campus posted a photograph of the same man. “One sign here at the Columbia protest,” the reporter, Jake Sherman, wrote. “This man is ranting about Jews controlling the universe.”The man wasn’t “at the Columbia protest.” The university’s campus has been closed to outsiders for over a week — even as a journalist and an alumnus, I had trouble getting in. He was, several people on social media told Sherman, a well-known antisemitic crank completely unconnected from what was unfolding on campus. Indeed, last week I had seen a man wearing an identical cross carrying a similarly lettered sign that read, “Google it! Jews vs. TikTok” protesting outside Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Lower Manhattan. He was, for the record, standing on the pro-Trump side of the protest area.But the incident is emblematic of how difficult it has become to make sense of what is actually happening on college campuses right now. As the protests have spread to dozens of campuses and counting, competing viral clips on social media paint vastly different versions of what’s happening inside these pro-Palestine camps. Are they violent conflict zones, filled with militant protesters who hurl antisemitic abuse and threaten Jewish students, requiring, as some political leaders have suggested, deployment of the National Guard? Or is it a giant love-fest of students braiding daisy chains and singing “Kumbaya”?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Three Questions About Politics and the Campus Protests

      by

      The encampments present a new wrinkle in a year already knotted by war abroad and domestic discord.The pro-Palestinian student encampments protesting the war in Gaza swept across the country this week, and with them, dramatic imagery of arrests and crackdowns from New York to Texas to Southern California.Soon, the comparison to another protest-filled election year inevitably arose. Is 2024 going to morph into something that feels like 1968?That year, protests at Columbia University exploded amid a nationwide movement against the Vietnam War, one that involved violent clashes as police moved in on protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that summer. Democrats, who had been deeply divided over the war, ultimately lost the election to President Nixon.There are many differences between then and now, and it is much too soon to know whether the campus protests happening now will come to feel like what happened that seismic year. But the bubbling up of protest activity across college campuses half a year before a presidential election has made 2024 — a year already knotted by war overseas and deep domestic political division — that much more complicated. It’s another question mark in a political season already full of them.Here are three questions about the politics of this moment — questions that my colleagues and I will continue to explore in the coming weeks and months.Do the protests represent a broad disaffection that will hurt Democrats?The students demonstrating on college campuses across the nation are a physical embodiment of the way that the Democratic base has been divided by the war in Gaza. They have drawn renewed attention to the disappointment many young and progressive voters feel about the Biden administration’s support of Israel in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. (While largely peaceful, the protests have also been criticized for some demonstrators’ use of antisemitic language.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Iran Sentences Prominent Rapper to Death, Lawyer Says

      by

      The rapper, Toomaj Salehi, was initially arrested after releasing music in support of the 2022 protests over the death of a young woman in police custody.A dissident rapper has been sentenced to death in Iran after releasing music in support of antigovernment demonstrations that rocked the country in 2022, according to his lawyer, in a case that has prompted global condemnation.The rapper, Toomaj Salehi, 33, was one of the most prominent voices among those arrested over nationwide protests against Iran’s clerical rulers after the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, 22. Human rights organizations have been calling for Mr. Salehi’s release, saying that he has been tortured in prison and warning that he could face execution.Amir Raesian, Mr. Salehi’s lawyer, told the Iranian reformist newspaper Shargh in an article published on Wednesday that a court in the central city of Isfahan had sentenced Mr. Salehi to death and that his client planned to appeal.The office of the U.S. Special Envoy for Iran condemned the sentence, calling it another example of “the regime’s brutal abuse of its own citizens, disregard for human rights, and fear of the democratic change the Iranian people seek.”Mr. Salehi was initially arrested in October 2022 for releasing music criticizing the government and backing the demonstrations ignited by the death of Ms. Amini in the custody of Iran’s morality police. He also posted videos on his Instagram account encouraging his followers to protest.The Iranian authorities charged him that November with “spreading corruption on earth,” an offense that can carry the death penalty. U.N. experts said the court proceedings were held behind closed doors without Mr. Salehi’s lawyer present and expressed alarm about reports the artist had been tortured, citing reports of his broken nose and several broken fingers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Compares Campus Protests to Violent White Supremacist Rally in Charlottesville

      by

      Former President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday played down the violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 while portraying a recent wave of vocal but predominantly peaceful pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses as “riots.”One woman was killed and nearly 40 people were injured when an avowed neo-Nazi plowed his car through a crowd of counterprotesters during violent clashes in Charlottesville. Earlier, hundreds of white supremacists had marched through the city, carrying torches and chanting, “Jews will not replace us.”The current campus protests, while resulting in dozens of arrests, have had no reports of significant violence.In a post on his social media site, peppered with random capitalization, Mr. Trump said: “Joe Biden would say, constantly, that he ran because of Charlottesville,” he wrote of the 2020 election. “Well, if that’s the case, he’s done a really terrible job because Charlottesville is like a ‘peanut’ compared to the riots and anti-Israel protests that are happening all over our Country, RIGHT NOW.”Mr. Trump also repeated an attack on President Biden, saying that he “HATES Israel and Hates the Jewish people,” while adding “the problem is that he HATES the Palestinians even more, and he just doesn’t know what to do!?!?”Representatives for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Biden campaign also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Campus Protests Over Gaza Intensify Amid Pushback by Universities and Police

      by

      There were dozens of new arrests as universities moved to prevent pro-Palestinian encampments from taking hold as they have at Columbia University.A wave of pro-Palestinian protests spread and intensified on Wednesday as students gathered on campuses around the country, in some cases facing off with the police, in a widening showdown over campus speech and the war in Gaza.University administrators from Texas to California moved to clear protesters and prevent encampments from taking hold on their own campuses as they have at Columbia University, deploying police in tense new confrontations that already have led to dozens of arrests.At the same time, new protests continued erupting in places like Pittsburgh and San Antonio. Students expressed solidarity with their fellow students at Columbia, and with a pro-Palestinian movement that appeared to be galvanized by the pushback on other campuses and the looming end of the academic year.Protesters on several campuses said their demands included divestment by their universities from companies connected to the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, disclosure of those and other investments and a recognition of the continuing right to protest without punishment.The demonstrations spread overseas as well, with students on campuses in Cairo, Paris and Sydney, Australia, gathering to voice support for Palestinians and opposition to the war.As new protests were emerging, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, visited the Columbia campus in New York, where university officials were seeking to negotiate with protest leaders to end the encampment of around 80 tents still pitched on a central campus lawn.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Columbia Sets Midnight Deadline For Talks to End Encampment

      by

      The university, which asked the police to arrest protesters last week, will consider “alternative options” for clearing the lawn if an agreement is not reached.Columbia University set a midnight deadline late on Tuesday for an encampment of student protesters to disband, after which New York City police could be sent in to clear the grounds and make arrests.In an email to the university two hours before midnight, Columbia’s president, Nemat Shafik, said university administrators were in talks with student organizers in an attempt to reach an agreement before the deadline, after which the school would consider “alternative options” for clearing the lawn.Nearly a week ago, Dr. Shafik took the extraordinary step of enlisting city police in riot gear to arrest more than 100 activists who had refused to leave the tent village protesting Israel’s war in Gaza. That touched off criticism from all sides about her handling of the campus protests. The encampment re-emerged larger than the initial one after it was cleared.When Dr. Shafik’s letter landed in inboxes late Tuesday, protesters and others who were gathered outside the campus gates began reading it out loud. Chants rose up about the midnight deadline.On campus, the scene was mostly calm as about 100 people stood around talking to each other inside the encampment.After months of demonstrations on campuses protesting the war in Gaza, the unrest has reached a fever pitch in the final weeks of classes at some of the country’s most storied academic institutions. On Monday, police were called in to make arrests at Yale and New York University. Encampments have also sprung up at Tufts, Emerson and the University of California, Berkeley.Administrators have been struggling to balance students’ free speech rights and the need to protect Jewish students. Some demonstrations have included hate speech, threats or support for Hamas, the armed group based in Gaza that led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, sparking the war.At Columbia, some faculty members circulated a draft resolution to censure the president over what they called an “unprecedented assault on student rights.” At least one major Jewish donor cut off support, saying the university was not doing enough to protect students. More

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      A Night Different From Others as Pro-Palestinian Protests Break for Seder

      by

      On the first night of Passover, the singsong of the Four Questions echoed from Jewish homes and gatherings around the world, including from unlikely, contested spaces: the center of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia and other universities where demonstrations are taking place.As evening fell over Columbia’s tent encampment on Monday, about 100 students and faculty gathered in a circle around a blue tarp heaped with boxes of matzo and food they had prepared in a kosher kitchen. Some students wore kaffiyehs, the traditional Palestinian scarf, while others wore Jewish skullcaps. They distributed handmade Haggadahs — prayer books for the Passover holiday — and read prayers in Hebrew, keeping to the traditional order.But there were also changes and additions, like a watermelon on the Seder plate to represent the flag of Palestine. There were repeated references to the suffering of the Palestinian people and the need to ensure their liberation. There was grape juice instead of wine to respect the alcohol-free encampment, which was started last Wednesday and, despite a police crackdown last week, was stretching into its sixth day.The question asked each year — Why is this night different from all other nights?— echoed with new meaning.Jewish students served matzo at Columbia University at what they called a Gaza Liberation Seder on campus.Bing Guan for The New York TimesThe students read from handmade Haggadahs.Caitlin Ochs/ReutersAt other pro-Palestinian encampments and protests that have cropped up this week, similar scenes played out. Some protest organizers and participants are anti-Zionist Jewish students, and at Columbia, roughly 15 of the students who have been suspended for their involvement in the encampment are Jewish, organizers said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More