{"id":40204,"date":"2025-03-13T12:30:23","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T19:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=40204"},"modified":"2025-03-13T12:30:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T19:30:28","slug":"students-walk-out-at-uc-berkeley-opposing-pro-palestine-student-activist-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/03\/13\/students-walk-out-at-uc-berkeley-opposing-pro-palestine-student-activist-arrest\/","title":{"rendered":"Students walk out at UC Berkeley, opposing pro-Palestine student activist arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul>\n<li>Kira Pan &amp; Roman Trovato | Staff<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Mar 12, 2025 (DailyCal.org)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com\/dailycal.org\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/3\/ca\/3caeea30-fefa-11ef-8e45-d76a07809b41\/67d10d127e395.image.jpg?resize=400%2C258\" alt=\"columbia_Jun Oh_staff.jpg\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">UC Berkeley organizations in attendance included Jewish Voice for Peace at UC Berkeley, Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Student Association.&nbsp;They gathered on Sproul Plaza and marched through campus.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailycal.org\/users\/profile\/Jun%20Oh\">Jun Oh | Staff<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Hundreds gathered on Sproul Plaza on Tuesday afternoon in response to the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestine activist and student at Columbia University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Khalil was detained Sunday at Columbia by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, which revoked his student visa and green card. In a statement, President Donald Trump claimed that this was the \u201cfirst arrest of many\u201d to be made against pro-Palestine student activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Protest attendees marched around campus, making stops in front of Dwinelle, Wheeler Hall and Doe Library, chanting \u201cfree free free Palestine,\u201d \u201cviva viva Palestina\u201d and \u201cfrom the river to the sea, Palestine will be free\u201d as they walked between locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They also held signs reading \u201cRelease Mahmoud Khalil,\u201d \u201cICE off our campus\u201d and \u201cfree Mahmoud free speech.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zaid Yousef, a campus law student and president of the Muslim Student Association, was among the main speakers at the protest. Yousef said the purpose of the demonstration was to continue supporting the ceasefire in Gaza and call out the government\u2019s \u201cunconstitutional\u201d response to peaceful student protests, referring specifically to Khalil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Campus graduate student Ameen Lotfi denounced the conflation of anti-Israel protests with antisemitism, claiming this creates a \u201cfertile landscape\u201d for ICE to target students and green card holders on university campuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lotfi added that students and faculty at UC Berkeley cannot be apathetic about pro-Palestine activists being targeted at Columbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re here to say that we do have a voice and there\u2019s no business as usual,\u201d Lotfi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Students and organizations from San Francisco State University, University of San Francisco and Berkeley City College attended the protest. Students and faculty in attendance from campus organizations included Jewish Voice for Peace at UC Berkeley, Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Student Association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ethnic studies professor Juana Mar\u00eda Rodr\u00edguez, a member of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, said she feels her freedom of speech, as well as that of everyone else, is under government attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m here to protect the rights of free speech, the right of every person to protest \u2014 whether we\u2019re protesting for Palestine, whether we\u2019re protesting against cuts against science funding,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez said. \u201cI\u2019m here to make sure that we have that right, and that we will not be criminalized or targeted by this government for making our voices heard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds gathered on Sproul Plaza on Tuesday afternoon in response to the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestine activist and student at Columbia University. Khalil was detained Sunday at Columbia by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, which revoked his student visa and green card. In a statement, President Donald&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/03\/13\/students-walk-out-at-uc-berkeley-opposing-pro-palestine-student-activist-arrest\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40204"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40205,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40204\/revisions\/40205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}