Police Remove Pro-Palestinian Students from Paris’s Sciences Po University
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - French police officers entered the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) in Paris and removed pro-Palestinian student activists who had occupied its buildings to protest Israel’s war on Gaza.
The police on Friday moved in into one of the buildings and removed more than 50 students who were staging a sit-in, including some who had begun a hunger strike, Al Jazeera’s reporter said.
James, a student at the university, told Al Jazeera that earlier on Friday, the school administrator held another round of talks with protesters, but negotiations to move the protest elsewhere on campus broke down.
Students from the university’s Palestine Committee had earlier told reporters they faced a “disproportionate” response from police, who had blocked access to the site before moving in.
They also complained of a lack of “medical assistance” for seven students who had started a hunger strike “in solidarity with Palestinian victims”.
The university was closed for the day on Friday, with a heavy police presence around its main building.
Sciences Po has become the epicenter of student antiwar protests in France over the institution’s academic ties with Israel. Last week, students blocked access to the university.