Boston police arrest 100 as crackdown on campus Palestine protests ramps up

More than 100 people were arrested at Emerson College in Boston early on Thursday in the latest crackdown against the rising wave of campus pro-Palestinian protests across the US that has seen the House speaker, Mike Johnson, suggest calling in the national guard.

Johnson waded into an already tense situation on Wednesday with a visit to Columbia University, where the decision last week of the university president, Minouche Shafik, to invite the NYPD to dismantle a student encampment catalysed what is rapidly becoming a national movement. Johnson nevertheless called for the resignation of Shafik, facing jeers on campus from the pro-Palestinian protesters.

At University of Texas in Austin at least 34 protesters, including a member of the media from a local news station, were arrested overnight, while at 93 more were detained by police dressed in riot gear at the University of Southern California (USC), the Los Angeles Times reported.

In mass arrests at USC, militarized officers were filmed appearing to shoot rubber bullets into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators. While described as “less-lethal weapons”, rubber bullets can cause serious injury or even death. Further north at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, protesters barricaded themselves in a university building using furniture, tents, chains and zip-ties, prompting a campus shutdown.