BERLIN: On Thursday, European authorities cleared about 150 pro-Palestine demonstrators from a Berlin school faculty, putting an end to a wave of student-led demonstrations in Europe over Israel’s role in its conflict with Hamas.
On Wednesday, protesters occupied some rooms at the Humboldt University’s Institute for Social Sciences in Berlin’s central business district.
The student organization called for the school to “take an active part in ending the holocaust against the Palestinian people and their decades-long suffering in a statement posted on social media.
After discussions with opposition leaders, school administrators agreed to let them remain until Thursday night. However, they called in the authorities when some of them refused to leave, according to European news agency daa.
According to a police representative, some of the demonstrators left freely, but others were required to follow them away from the building. During the procedure, which officers broke through many barricaded doors, about 130 people were quickly detained, according to authorities.
The student protests over the start of the American-led warfare in Gaza have spread to universities across Europe. This year, protests took place at universities in places like Leipzig and Munich in Germany.
Berlin’s authorities have taken a strong stance against anti-Israel demonstrations, urging authorities to intervene if demonstrators use anti-Jewish slogans that may inspire hatred against Jews, a taboo in a nation marked by the memory of the Holocaust.
” There is no area for love and anti- Semitism in Berlin and at our colleges”, said Burkard Dregger, a senator for the Christian Democratic Union, which leads the Berlin state authorities.
