By Kelly Rayburn
DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
[email protected]
A small group of UCLA students began circulating a petition at a
noontime rally Thursday, demanding the administration at UC
Berkeley not suspend about 40 students who took over a campus
building after a pro-Palestinian demonstration.
The administration is restricting the students’ right of
free speech, says UCLA’s Student Coalition Against the
War.
By 1 p.m. Thursday more than 100 people had already signed the
petition, which the coalition plans to send to Berkeley’s
chancellor, Robert Berdahl.
After an April 9 pro-Palestinian demonstration at Berkeley,
nearly 500 people tried to storm a classroom building. Some
students hung a Palestinian flag from a third story window, while
others chanted in the hallways of the building, according to The
Associated Press.
One protester bit a police officer, said a statement from
Berkeley’s office media relations. Campus police arrested 79,
about 40 of whom were students.
They now face punishment from the Berkeley administration and
were arraigned at the Berkeley Court House Tuesday on charges of
trespassing. Additionally, the student group, Students for Justice
in Palestine, has temporarily been suspended.
“We believe this is a systematic attempt to silence
pro-Palestinian voices on campus and to intimidate students from
being activists,” the UCLA petition reads.
Rally organizer and fourth-year political science student Behzad
Raghian said he thinks the administration is seeking to punish the
students because they “embarrassed the university by exposing
its attachment to Israel,” a country he criticized deeply at
a Meyerhoff Park rally, which was attended by few students.
Raghian said students sitting-in in a university building is
within their free speech rights.
“Free speech means you can speak anywhere,” he said.
“Not just in the limits we design for you.”
“Rip the tape off their mouths, because they’ve been
silenced,” said Brett Featherstone, a second-year world arts
and culture student.
The Berkeley administration has said their actions reflect their
responsibility to protect all members of the campus community to
allow them to go about their work without interruption
““Â not a bias against any group.
Both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups have every right to
participate in nonviolent demonstrations, said the Berkeley
chancellor the day before the arrests.
Though a number of people signed the petition, few listened as
Raghian and others condemned Israel.
Some on the lawn ““Â taking break from their classes
and soaking in the midday sun ““ seemed totally oblivious to
the speakers nearby.
The rally was a last minute effort, put together at the request
from the students at Berkeley who are facing consequences from the
administration, Raghian said.