It’s been over a year since police officers broke up pro-Palestinian protests on Virginia Commonwealth University’s Richmond campus. But the students involved in those protests are back with renewed demands.
Hundreds of protestors on VCU’s campus last April chanted "peaceful protest" as police officers removed an encampment and arrested 13 people.
Thursday afternoon, as a group of three spoke a crowd gathered. They cheered and chanted “Free Palestine!” after the organizers spoke with the press.
Among organizers is Sereen Haddad, a VCU psychology student who has been involved in the protests, Board of Visitors meetings, and legislative hearings in the hopes of drawing attention to the issues with her homeland.
“Israel just bombed a school 30 mins ago and we stand here in the face of an institution that has chosen complicity over justice,” Haddad said.
Haddad and her fellow student protestors said they’d held several protests since last spring’s run-in with police. Those actions included walk outs and drawing with chalk, or chalking, on approved campus spaces. These actions came with demands they renewed Thursday, including resisting “fascist attacks and establishing VCU as a sanctuary campus” and rejecting “anti-Palestinian conditions for continued federal funding.”
“We will not stop demanding this university lives up to the values it claims to uphold,” Haddad said.
As for future actions, they were less specific. They said attempts to meet with VCU’s administration in person weren’t granted, but they regularly got emails asking for details about their protest events.
VCU said they had no comment on the protests. The college updated its protest policies last fall. Beyond what Haddad called quote “regular surveillance” the protestors said they hadn’t had interactions with police since last spring.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
