In Lisbon, Coimbra and Porto, students begin to demonstrate for Gaza | Palestine

All over the world, student protests against Israel’s attack on Gaza are taking place. In the United States, at least 2,500 people were arrested following demonstrations and “camps” at universities; Also in Canada, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia, students mobilized in defense of Palestine. Now it’s Portugal’s turn.

There are students camped at the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Lisbon. There were around 20 at the end of the morning, but the expectation is that more will join throughout the day (or days), said Catarina Bio, from Greve Climática Estudantil, one of the organizers of the protest, together with the collective Students for Palestine .

“We demand an end to the massacres in the name of profit and colonialism, that is, an immediate ceasefire without any imposed conditions, and an end to fossil fuels by 2030”, he points out.

“The genocide that is currently happening in Palestine is the last step in a colonialist project that also has fossil colonialism at its base”, he continues. Last October, Israel’s Minister of Energy and Infrastructure announced that he had given gas exploration concessions to Israeli and international companies in areas that significantly overlap Gaza’s maritime borders.

Also in Coimbra, from 11 am to 5 pm, a sit-down took place at Largo D. Dinis. “Large fossil companies profit from the ongoing genocide, being an active part in the normalization of military occupation”, writes the activist group Coimbra pela Palestine on Instagram, where they publicized the action. They demand an “immediate ceasefire, support for the complaint filed against Israel at the International Court of Justice, the severing of diplomatic and financial relations with Israel, the recognition of the Palestinian State and the creation of a Special Palestinian Refugee Status, an end to fossil fuel by 2030 and 100% renewable and free electricity by 2025”.

These are demands similar to those that will be made this Wednesday, May 8, at a sit-down to take place at 2 pm in front of the Rectory of the University of Porto, in Praça de Gomes Teixeira. It is organized by the Students in Defense of Palestine collective, created last March, which was inspired by “what is happening in the United States, Mexico, France, Germany” and wanted to “demand the breaking of the university’s academic relations with Israeli Zionist institutions ”, begins by explaining Bárbara Molnar, creator of the project.

“We saw what was happening in the United States and that was the kick-off for the mobilization”, he says. The students looked for connections between the University of Porto and Israeli companies, whether through “exchange of knowledge, funds or money” and want to “deliver to a representative of the University” a letter they prepared for the rector.

LUSA

The open letter names some of these Israeli companies with links to the University of Porto, asks the institution to cut ties with them, to stand “firmly against the genocide taking place in Palestine” and suggests the creation of protocols with Palestinian universities. It is signed by students from different faculties and wants a commitment “to a meeting with the movement”, explains Bárbara.

The idea is that, in the future, all these independent collectives will “unify nationally against genocide”. What is happening in the United States, where thousands of people have been arrested and tension between protesters and police is increasing. “It is very important to signal that this repression wants to confuse what criticism of Zionism is and what anti-Semitism is. It’s fallacious.”

Protests in the rest of the world

The demand to cease relations with Israeli institutions is being made at universities around the world. At the University of Amsterdam, hundreds of students set up a camp and barricaded access with wooden pallets. In Belgium, at Ghent University, students set up tents in one of the buildings. Several faculty and staff signed the letter condemning the university’s decision to continue collaborating on investigations with Israel.

In Spain, students from Valencia, Barcelona, ​​the Basque Country and Seville joined the mobilization. In France, Sorbonne students want the institution to stop financing activities related to Israel. The demonstrations led to the police expelling a group that remained on the premises.

This Monday, May 6, Columbia University announced that the graduation ceremony was canceled due to protests taking place on campus. Riot police were called to the scene and used batons and stun grenades to remove the students. Face-to-face classes have also ended.

But there were also agreements already reached: some American universities (Minnesota, Brown, Evergreen State College, among others) committed to divestment, others promised to look at the list of investors, or even to let students do it, for example . In return, the students removed the camps. Other institutions decided to simply let the protests continue.