哈佛大学和布朗大学是最新设立帐篷营地的新英格兰大学 抗议者呼吁大学从支持以色列的公司撤资
【中美创新时报2024 年 4 月 25 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）周三（24日），为抗议加沙战争而建造户外营地的学生人数急剧增加，哈佛大学的数百名学生和布朗大学的数十名学生搭建了帐篷、防水布和横幅，并呼吁他们的学校从以色列撤资。《波士顿环球报》记者Maddie Khaw、Daniel Kool 和 Sofia Barnett对此作了下述详细报道。
在麻省理工学院、爱默生学院和塔夫茨大学建立类似的营地三天后，哈佛大学和布朗大学的帐篷也搭起来了。新英格兰抗议活动是在上周哥伦比亚大学另一个营地有 100 多名学生被捕之后发生的，而此次抗议活动正值全国各地校园的紧张局势和抗议活动不断升级之际。
其他一些大学和公职人员也向执法部门寻求帮助。波士顿警方和消防部门警告艾默生官员，由于违反了城市法令，可能会采取行动。据美联社周三晚间报道，在德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校，警察用推土机冲向抗议者，至少 20 人被捕。
在哈佛，本周早些时候正式暂停的巴勒斯坦团结委员会在院子里高举巴勒斯坦旗帜和标语，高呼口号、游行和欢呼。哈佛大学学生组织者之一、法学院学生 Lea Kayali 表示，大约一个小时后，他们在院子里搭起了 19 个帐篷。这座历史悠久的校园的纵横交错的小路通常都是游客和其他游客走过的，周三却相对空荡荡，保安人员在门口检查身份证。
哈佛营地被组织者称为“解放区”，是由一个名为“哈佛脱离被占领巴勒斯坦联盟”的学生团体精心策划的。
该联盟在周三的集会上大声宣读的一份声明中表示：“我们建立这个解放区是为了呼吁结束哈佛大学在巴勒斯坦人民正在进行的种族灭绝中的道德和物质共谋。” “作为学生、教育工作者和研究生工作者，我们有责任反对这种种族灭绝。”
哈佛大学发言人杰森·牛顿表示，大学官员正在“密切关注事态发展，并优先考虑校园社区的安全”。
巴勒斯坦团结委员会的要求之一是哈佛大学披露在以色列的任何机构和金融投资，类似于麻省理工学院、艾默生大学和塔夫茨大学学生组织者的要求。
据加沙卫生部称，在加沙，以色列的轰炸和地面进攻已造成超过 34,000 人死亡，这是继 10 月 7 日哈马斯领导的对以色列的袭击造成 1,200 多人死亡后的报复行动 另有 250 人被绑架。
哈佛法学院学生塔拉·阿尔福卡哈 (Tala Alfoqaha) 是一名巴勒斯坦人，她说自己的家人在该地区被杀。她表示，哈佛营地的设立是为了声援哥伦比亚大学、麻省理工学院和其他大学的营地，但她希望关于加沙焦点继续保留 。
阿尔福卡哈说：“在过去的六七个月里，我每天醒来都会看到流血的画面，而我一生都在目睹巴勒斯坦人的死亡被视为现状。” “我认为现在现状正在受到质疑。 我认为很多人现在已经意识到，我们不能再像往常一样继续下去了。”
哈佛犹太校友联盟呼吁哈佛清理营地，并进行纪律处分或逮捕——或者两者兼而有之——“这些非法抗议者违反了所有可接受的大学关于言论自由的规定，”该组织领导人埃里克·弗莱斯周三在 WhatsApp 的一个论坛上写道。
在艾默生，抗议的学生周日在博伊尔斯顿广场 (Boylston Place) 的小巷里搭起帐篷，小巷里现在布满了白垩，这是一条连接博伊尔斯顿街和州交通大楼的死胡同。整个下午，人们对警察可能会清理营地的担忧不断回响。
据《波士顿环球报》获得的艾默生学院管理人员周三早上发给学生的一封电子邮件显示，波士顿警察和消防部门警告艾默生学院管理人员，“迫在眉睫的执法行动”可能会在这条小巷中展开。
警察和消防专员告诉艾默生领导层，占据博伊斯顿广场的帐篷“直接违反了城市条例”，该广场部分归学院所有，也是公共通行权。该电子邮件提到了一项禁止非法露营的城市法令，该法令禁止人们在公共财产上搭建帐篷和防水布。
“这些不是艾默生学院的规则，而是由市和联邦执行的法律和条例，”艾默生发给学生的电子邮件中写道，该电子邮件由学院院长杰·伯恩哈特和其他管理人员签署。
作为回应，学生们在下午左右形成了两到三排深的人墙，封锁了小巷的两端。其他学生、教授和公众被允许通过，但学生们表示，目的是阻止警察和艾默生管理人员进入。
艾默生大四学生阿蒙·普菲特 (Amun Prophet) 表示：“人们已经为即将发生的事情做好了准备。” “尸体越多，每个人被捕的风险就越小。”
到下午 5 点，帐篷还没有搭起来，尽管大约有十几名学生站在街对面进行抗议，挥舞着以色列国旗并播放以色列音乐，但警方没有进行干预。
与此同时，麻省理工学院克雷斯吉草坪上的帐篷一直保留到周三晚上，学生们正在为第四个通宵做准备。由于整个下午和晚上都有阵雨，抗议者用纸板和防水布制作了临时排水沟以帮助排水。
布朗大学的学生“布朗撤资联盟”在一份新闻稿中表示，他们计划留在学校，直到学校满足某些要求：撤销对去年 12 月在大学礼堂静坐期间被捕的 41 名学生的指控，并从“布朗大学”中撤资“ 公司从以色列对巴勒斯坦领土的军事占领中获利。”
参加营地的布朗大学大三学生阿曼·迪恩达尔 (Arman Deendar) 表示：“就加沙实际发生的情况而言，停学和被捕的风险非常小。” “这感觉是我们作为就读真正精英大学并占据真正特权地位的学生至少能做的事情。”
布朗营地发生了数月的抗议活动，期间有 61 名学生因参与支持加沙人民的示威活动而被捕。
周二，该大学管理部门向所有布朗社区成员发送了一封电子邮件，警告参加营地的人可能会受到影响。
“对任何违反大学政策的学生进行审查和处理将立即开始，并可能导致纪律处分，甚至包括离开学校，”电子邮件部分内容如下。 “对于即将毕业的学生来说，行为流程可能会影响毕业，对于高年级学生来说，可能会影响参加高年级周活动和毕业典礼的能力。”
支持加沙和巴勒斯坦人的营地也出现在密歇根大学、加州大学伯克利分校、明尼苏达大学和范德比尔特大学的校园里。
据美联社报道，周一，耶鲁大学有数十名学生被捕，纽约大学也有 100 多名学生在类似的营地被捕。
据美联社报道，众议院议长迈克·约翰逊周三下午访问了哥伦比亚大学校园，会见了犹太学生。在校园与犹太学生会面后，约翰逊呼吁大学校长内马特·沙菲克辞职，但抗议者却发出嘘声。
题图：一名抗议者将头巾（一种与巴勒斯坦人有关的围巾）盖在哈佛庭院的约翰·哈佛雕像上。LANE TURNER/GLOBE STAFF
附原英文报道：
Harvard and Brown are latest New England universities to see tent encampments
The protesters are calling on the universities to divest from companies that support Israel
By Maddie Khaw, Daniel Kool and Sofia Barnett Globe Correspondent and Globe correspondent,Updated April 24, 2024
Emerson College students continue pro-Palestine encampment amid warnings of “law enforcement action”
An Emerson student-led tent encampment in protest of the war on Gaza continues for its third day in Boylston Place alley amid police warnings. (Olivia Yarvis/Globe Staff)
The number of area students building outdoor encampments to protest the war in Gaza rose dramatically on Wednesday, as hundreds of students at Harvard University and dozens more at Brown University erected tents, tarps, and banners and called on their schools to divest from Israel.
Tents at Harvard and Brown went up three days after similar encampments were established at MIT, Emerson College, and Tufts University. The New England protests follow the arrest last week of more than 100 students at another encampment at Columbia University, and they come amid rising tensions and protests on campuses across the country.
Some of the other universities and public officials have also turned to law enforcement for help. Boston police and fire warned Emerson officials of possible action, due to a violation of a city ordinance. At the University of Texas Austin, police bulldozed into protesters, with at least 20 people arrested, the Associated Press reported Wednesday night.
At Harvard, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, which was formally suspended earlier this week, chanted, marched, and cheered, holding Palestinian flags and signs within the yard. About an hour later, it set up 19 tents inside the yard, according to Lea Kayali, a law student and one of the Harvard student organizers. The historic campus’s criss-crossing paths, usually trod by tourists and other visitors, were relatively empty Wednesday, with security officers checking IDs at the gates.
The Harvard encampment, which organizers called a “liberated zone,” was orchestrated by a student group called the Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine Coalition.
“We have established this liberated zone to call for an end to Harvard’s moral and material complicity in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people,” the coalition said in a statement read aloud at Wednesday’s rally. “As students, educators, and graduate workers, we have a duty to fight against this genocide.”
Jason Newton, a Harvard spokesperson, said university officials are “closely monitoring the situation and are prioritizing the safety and security of the campus community.”
Among the Palestine Solidarity Committee’s demands are that Harvard disclose any institutional and financial investments in Israel, similar to the demands of student organizers at MIT, Emerson, and Tufts.
In Gaza, more than 34,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s bombardment and ground offensive, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, a retaliatory operation following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, which left more than 1,200 people dead and another 250 others kidnapped.
Tala Alfoqaha, a Harvard law student who is Palestinian and has family members she said were killed in the region, said the Harvard encampment was put up in solidarity with those at Columbia University, MIT, and other colleges but that she wants the focus to remain on Gaza.
“I’ve been waking up to images of bloodshed every single day for these past six, seven months, following an entire lifetime of watching Palestinian death be treated as the status quo,” Alfoqaha said. “And I think right now that status quo is being interrogated. And I think many people are coming to that realization right now, that we can’t continue on as normal.”
The Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance called on Harvard to clear out the encampment and discipline or arrest — or both — “these illegal protestors who are violating all acceptable university rules concerning free speech,” the group’s leader Eric Fleiss wrote in a forum on WhatsApp Wednesday.
At Emerson, where protesting students on Sunday set up tents in the now chalk-filled alleyway of Boylston Place — a dead-end alley connecting Boylston Street and the state transportation building — anxieties about the possibility of police clearing the encampment resonated throughout the afternoon.
Boston police and fire departments warned Emerson College administrators that “imminent law enforcement action” could take place in the alley, according to an email obtained by the Globe that Emerson administrators sent to students Wednesday morning.
Police and fire commissioners told Emerson leadership that the tents occupying Boylston Place, which is partially owned by the college and is also a public right-of-way, are in “direct violation of city ordinances.” The email pointed to a city ordinance against unlawful camping that bans people from setting up tents and tarps on public property.
“These are not Emerson College rules but laws and ordinances enforced by the city and the commonwealth,” read Emerson’s email to students, which was signed by college president Jay Bernhardt and other administrators.
In response, students formed a human barricade around the middle of the afternoon, two to three rows deep, blocking both ends of the alley. Other students, professors, and members of the public were allowed to pass, but the goal, students said, was to prevent police and Emerson administrators from entering.
“People are ready for what’s going to come,” said Amun Prophet, an Emerson senior. “The more bodies there are, the less risk of arrest there is for everyone.”
By 5 p.m., the tents were still up, and though about a dozen students stood in counterprotest across the street, waving an Israeli flag and playing Israeli music, police had not intervened.
Meanwhile, tents remained on MIT’s Kresge Lawn into the evening Wednesday, as students prepared for their fourth overnight. Protesters crafted makeshift gutters out of cardboard and tarps to help with drainage, as showers fell throughout the afternoon and evening.
At Brown, students with the Brown Divest Coalition said in a press release that they plan to stay put until the university meets certain demands: dropping charges against 41 students arrested during a sit-in at University Hall last December and divesting the university’s endowment from “companies enabling and profiting from Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian territory.”
“The risk of suspension and the risk of arrest are pretty minimal in terms of what’s actually happening on the ground in Gaza,” said Arman Deendar, a Brown University junior participating in the encampment. “This feels like the least we can do as students who go to a really elite university and occupy a really privileged place.”
The encampment at Brown follows months of protests, during which 61 students have been arrested for their involvement in demonstrations in support of those in Gaza.
On Tuesday, the university’s administration sent an email to all Brown community members warning of the potential repercussions for those who participate in the encampment.
“Conduct reviews and processes for any students in violation of University policies will begin immediately and could result in discipline up to and including separation from the institution,” the email read, in part. “For graduating students, conduct processes could impact graduation and, for seniors, the ability to participate in Senior Week activities and Commencement.”
Encampments in support of Gaza and Palestinians have also popped up on campuses at the University of Michigan, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Minnesota, and Vanderbilt University.
On Monday, dozens of students were arrested at Yale University and more than 100 were arrested at New York University at similar encampments, according to the Associated Press.
House Speaker Mike Johnson visited Columbia’s campus to meet with Jewish students Wednesday afternoon, the Associated Press reported. After meeting with Jewish students on campus, Johnson called on Nemat Shafik, the university’s president, to resign, as protesters booed from the crowd.
