Catalan university students have joined the wave of protests that are spreading on North American and European campuses in protest of the situation in Gaza. They have done it together with the Valencia and Basque Country campuses.
This afternoon, about three hundred students occupied the cloister of the historic building of Barcelona (UB), in Plaza Universitat, with tents, ready to camp for three days and pressure Catalan universities to position themselves in favor of Palestine. On Wednesday an extraordinary meeting is held on this campus to consider the possibility of publishing a manifesto.
Also today Basque students have pitched their tents on the campuses of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) of Vitoria-Gasteiz (Araba), Leioa (Bizkaia) and Ibaeta (Gipuzkoa), as well as at the Public University of Navarra . They follow the international movement
These concentrations are preceded by the camping trip of Valencian students who have also demonstrated in favor of Palestine. The young people demand “the breaking of relations with the State of Israel as an effective measure of pressure in the face of the Gaza massacre.”
The Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities has shown its respect for these protests, although it has recalled that they must be done with respect and without resorting to violence. Sources from the ministry have specified that students “have the right to demonstrate freely in Gaza” also in Spain, “as has happened throughout the history of our democracy for other reasons.”
Before the camping trip in Barcelona, ??young people gathered in front of the Faculty of Geography and History of the UB in Raval with a banner with the text: “Against the genocide of the Palestinian people.”
The university students, as well as the university workers, have been convened by different organizations supporting Palestine such as Universitats per Palestine and the Palestine Group UB and are in line with the University Network for Palestine that unifies Spanish universities.
In a manifesto, the young people have reviewed the occupations in universities in the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and in Spain, in Valencia, and have criticized that “EU countries and the US act in line with the historical alliance with the State of Israel that they have defended since its creation based on colonial occupation and ethnic cleansing.”
They have highlighted that students from universities around the world are mobilizing to show solidarity with the people and demand the liberation of Palestine, regretting that the response is being violent on the part of the police, with the arrest of thousands of students.
They have also criticized “the role of whitewashing and endorsement by universities towards the State of Israel”, and have demanded that Catalan universities take a position with the Palestinian people.
In a statement, CC.OO. of Catalonia has shown its support for the student camp and has celebrated that they are organized “against the genocide and the atrocities that are being committed against the Palestinian civilian population.”
Some universities have officially positioned themselves against Israel’s violence in Gaza, such as the University of the Basque Country, which published a week ago a clear statement “Manifesto of support for Palestine in the face of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza” in which it demands an end to the immediate fire and recognition of the Palestinian people.
The document, approved by a majority (40 votes in favor and 2 abstentions), calls for compliance with United Nations resolutions and articulates five commitments assumed by the university itself. Among them, “review and avoid commercial or academic relationships with those who do not respect human rights, international law or United Nations resolutions regarding the situation in Palestine.” In particular, it undertakes “not to maintain or break relations with Israeli universities and entities that do not expressly show their rejection of the crimes against humanity that are taking place in Palestine.”
On the other hand, more than 50 organizations that fight against anti-Semitism have signed an open letter addressed to the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE) regarding the “permissiveness” of Spanish centers with “hostility to Israel” due to the conflict. war in Gaza.
They assure that the most general attitude in recent months within each of the different universities has been “complacency and permissiveness with the various groups of students, professors and unions that have been leaving evidence of their hostility to Israel while at the same time their support for Hamas, both always masked under supposedly pro-Palestinian slogans.”
