L’université américaine Columbia a annoncé avoir imposé des sanctions individuelles à environ 80 étudiants qui avaient occupé en mai une bibliothèque du campus pour dénoncer les frappes israéliennes à Gaza.
Au cours des derniers mois, des universités américaines ont connu d’importants mouvements de contestation des bombardements israéliens à Gaza, et se sont fait accuser par l’administration Trump « d’antisémitisme ».
Début mai, environ 80 personnes avaient occupé la bibliothèque Butler de Columbia, à New York, une action condamnée par la présidence de l’université qui a immédiatement fait appel aux forces de l’ordre. Le chef de la diplomatie américaine, Marco Rubio, avait qualifié ces manifestants de « voyous pro-Hamas ».
00:00Breaking news, dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters have stormed Columbia University's Butler Library.
00:06Okay, Fox 5's Linda Schmitz live outside the campus in Morningside Heights.
00:10Linda, what's the situation like right now?
00:13Okay, it's one of those typical situations that we've seen many times before here at Columbia since last spring.
00:19But I want, David, I want you to just pan over here so we can see a whole big group of police officers.
00:24Do me a favor, just slide out of the way here.
00:25Lots of NYPD gathered here outside Butler Library here on the campus of Columbia University, as well as campus security.
00:34David, you can go ahead and come back to me now.
00:36What we are waiting for, this is the back entrance to the library.
00:40They have been bringing some of the protesters out here in handcuffs, handcuffed behind their back.
00:46They are not being arrested by the NYPD.
00:48Instead, they are being arrested by public safety officers.
00:52Now, those public safety officers were hired by the university.
00:56That was one of the requests by the Trump administration if the university wanted to have its $400 million in federal funding restored.
01:04Now, go ahead, take a look at this video here, because this is video that was posted on X from some of the students who were inside Butler Library when the one room was taken over by about 100 masked protesters.
01:16That happened about 3.15 this afternoon.
01:19Now, this is, keep in mind, students here are studying for finals.
01:23And this is what was going on starting at about 3.15 this afternoon.
01:27Now, let's take a look at the chopper footage here.
01:30This is outside Butler Library, which is on campus.
01:33And you can see there's probably a group of about 100 students, some of them wanting to get into the library in order to study.
01:41But then there's some scuffling going on in the group there because some of the protesters ended up coming outside the library and interacting with the students who wanted nothing to do with this demonstration.
01:53In addition, we've got some video here.
01:55This is just one of the protesters who was arrested, again, by public safety officers here at the campus.
02:03And we're not sure if the people being arrested or any of those protesters, we're not sure who is a student and who is not at this particular time.
02:13Now, Columbia University issuing this statement, quote,
02:16It is completely unacceptable that some individuals are choosing to disrupt academic activities as our students are studying and preparing for final exams.
02:26These disruptions of our campus and academic activities will not be tolerated.
02:31Individuals found to be in violation of university rules and policies will face disciplinary consequences.
02:39And again, as I said at the top, this is something new.
02:42The university now has new rules as a result of demands from the Trump administration in the Trump administration's attempt to cut down on anti-Semitism and to eliminate it here, not just on college campuses, but across the country.
02:58One of the rules is you're not allowed to wear masks anymore on campus here for a protest.
03:03So everybody that was part of that protest group, they all had masks on.
03:07They were in violation of the university policy.
03:09Also, obviously, you are not allowed to take over any of the buildings, any of the rooms, any of the living quarters here on campus, period.
03:19So now we're going to have to wait and see the disciplinary procedures, what's going to be happening next,
03:25and what is exactly going to happen with these protesters if they are, in fact, students.
03:30But again, this is still going on.
03:32Most of the students have been brought out, the protesters.
03:35They are either on campus or they have been taken away in handcuffs.
