Downing Street urges crackdown as pro-Palestine student protests spread
DOWNING Street has issued a statement as a growing number of students are starting encampments on university campuses, including in Scotland, in support of Palestine.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesperson confirmed that a group of university chancellors would be attending Downing Street later this week, to discuss “how to tackle rising antisemitism on campuses”.
There are currently 14 student encampments across the UK, including one set up in Edinburgh on Sunday, and one in Aberdeen which started on Monday.
The aim of the protests is to raise awareness of the relationship universities have with Israel, and to push universities to divest from Israeli companies which are directly involved with Israel’s war in Gaza.
The encampments in the UK are part of a wider global movement which started in the US and has spread across Europe, with students calling on their universities to sever ties with Israel and show solidarity with the people of Palestine.
The latest developments in the UK came as the Israeli military ordered Palestinians to evacuate parts of Rafah, where 1.4 million people are thought to be sheltering.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesperson said that Rishi Sunak had opened yesterday’s Cabinet meeting by saying there had been an “unacceptable rise in antisemitism on our university campuses” and vice-chancellors would be meeting to discuss “the need for our universities to be safe for our Jewish students”.
“Our university campuses should be places of rigorous debate, but they should also be tolerant places where people of all communities, particularly Jewish students at this time, are treated with respect,” the spokesperson said. He said a “vocal and aggressive minority” must not be able to intimidate other students or academics.
Asked what the Prime Minister’s message was to students involved in the protests, the spokesperson said: “The right to free speech does not include the right to harass people or incite violence.
“We expect university leaders to take robust action in dealing with that kind of behaviour and that will be the subject of the conversation in Number 10 later this week to ensure a zero-tolerance approach to this sort of behaviour is adopted on all campuses.”
Pressed on whether police should be called in to clear protest camps, the spokesperson said: “We want to see university leaders taking a robust approach to unacceptable behaviour.”
Operational decisions were a matter for police, who have been given “further powers to clamp down on highly disruptive protests”.
No instances of violence have so far been reported at the encampments in Aberdeen or Edinburgh.
The Downing Street statement came as police arrested around 125 activists as they broke up a pro-Palestinian demonstration camp at the University of Amsterdam. Police in the Dutch capital said in a statement on the social media platform Twitter/X that their action was “necessary to restore order” after protests turned violent.
Video from the scene aired by national broadcaster NOS showed police using a mechanical digger to push down barricades and officers wielding batons and shields moving in to end the demonstration, beating some of the protesters and pulling down tents.
Scores of demonstrators occupied a small island at the university on Monday, urging Amsterdam universities to break academic ties with Israel because of its offensive in Gaza in the aftermath of the deadly October 7 attacks by Hamas. There have also been demonstrations in recent days at campuses in Finland, Denmark and France.
In Finland, dozens of protesters from the Students for Palestine solidarity group set up an encampment outside the main building at the University of Helsinki, saying they will stay until the university cuts academic ties with Israeli universities.
In Denmark, students set up a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Copenhagen. About 45 tents were erected on the lawn outside the campus of the Faculty of Social Sciences
And in Paris, student groups called for gatherings in solidarity with Palestinians yesterday after French police peacefully removed dozens of students from a building at the Paris Institute of Political Studies on Friday.