Wayne State Palestinian encampment raided by police and rally held to free arrested protesters – Fight back! News

Detroit, Michigan – The Wayne State University encampment, known as Gaza People's University, Detroit Campus, was raided by police in riot gear in the early hours of Thursday, May 30 morning.

Around 5:30 a.m., those staying overnight at People's University were awakened by Wayne State Police who issued a dispersal order through a megaphone. With only minutes left before the cops swooped in, students organized themselves to decide how they would respond.

Students noted that despite the use of a megaphone, police issued the order very quietly, so some students would not have woken up and been put in danger during a police raid. This became a reality for one student, who was pulled from his tent by police and arrested. The students stayed as long as possible, until they were expelled from the People's University by police wielding riot shields and batons.

Two of the students, who chose to stay, were arrested. One of them was Ridaa Khan, a student at Wayne State and organizer of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group at Wayne State.

“I was one of the first students arrested,” Khan said. “There were fewer people than usual in the camp, most of them being organizers, and the cowardly administration and police took advantage of this to dismantle our people's university. The reason I was arrested was because I had promised to defend and maintain the camp until our school was divested and so I faced the cops who came to recklessly destroy what the students and the community had built.

Khan continued, “I was arrested in a truck for trespassing at the school I pay tuition for and serve on the Student Senate. To me, this symbolized the hypocrisy of my institution in failing to meet minimum standards of communication and understanding of the perspectives of students, faculty, and alumni who were advocating for a meeting on divestment. Their “encounter” took the form of absolute repression and largely radicalized Islamophobic violence.”

Minutes after the raid, students reorganized on the outskirts of the Wayne State campus. Twice, the students courageously tried to return to the popular university, while the cops worked to dismantle it as quickly as possible. During both return attempts, more students and community members were arrested by police in riot gear. On the second attempt, Wayne State Police surrounded and beat the marching protesters. Three women had their hijabs ripped off, an elderly man was pulled by the back of his shirt as he tried to escape, and a mother had to run with her young child due to danger from police.

Another Wayne State University student and Wayne State SJP organizer, Jackson Robak, was thrown to the ground and pinned down by several cops during the first attempt to return to People's University.

Robak said, “Students were arrested and attacked as an intimidation tactic by police and violently violated our First Amendment rights. Personally, I was arrested and attacked by the police, threatened with a Taser, simply because I did not allow them to mutilate another protester. I remained in jail for several hours, moving from a criminal pen to solitary confinement at various times before the tireless efforts of student protesters and the Michigan Council on American Islamic Relations saw me and others demonstrators, released.

After enduring all this brutality, and with most of the key SJP organizers in handcuffs, the leadership of the protesters was quickly reorganized. Despite the arrests, the crowds grew by the minute, as students and community members around Detroit woke up to scenes of police violence on social media.

A large crowd of 100 to 200 people gathered outside the main entrance to the Wayne State campus. A banner reading “Stop Funding Genocide” was draped over the Wayne State logo at the main entrance. More than a dozen Palestinian flags were brought to the rally, which fluttered loudly in the wind as student organizers and faculty spoke to the crowd and the press. At that rally, it was announced that faculty would hold a vote of no confidence in Wayne State University President Kimberly Andrews Espy. If this vote of no confidence succeeds, Espy could be removed from his position as university president.

With renewed numbers, protesters got in their cars and drove to the Detroit Detention Center, where six of the 11 students and community members arrested were being held by Detroit police. The other five people arrested had been temporarily detained by Wayne State Police before being released with tickets for trespassing at their own university. Among those released was Ridaa Khan.

Shortly before noon and until 5:30 p.m., people gathered on the lawn in front of the detention center, which resembles a prison with high fences topped with barbed wire. The police watched the demonstrators from behind their cars throughout the afternoon, as if standing guard in their prison where the prisoners were being held. Half of the SJP's free leadership, along with their Arab and Palestinian allies in Detroit, chanted in the crowd for hours under the scorching sun. Between the chants, there were sometimes fiery speeches, as well as taunts aimed at the police, keeping the energy and morale of the crowd high. An awning was installed to provide some shade, as well as a kitchen to feed people. During those hours, the People's University that lived on Wayne State's campus was alive and well again on the front lawn of the prison.

The crowd was ready to gather and chant for as long as it took, late into the night if necessary, so that students and community members could be freed. The other six were released, marching in line from the barbed wire, arms crossed, at 4:50 p.m. The crowd cheered and headed toward the street that separates their lawn from the high prison fences. When they encountered the line of freed protesters, friends and allies embraced them. Those freed gave speeches to the crowd on the lawn.

The Students for Justice in Palestine and the people of Detroit have not finished their fight for Wayne State to divest from the genocidal Zionist state and to end the training of the Wayne State Police by the Israelis.

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