Pro-Palestine students and staff at La Trobe University have called the university’s directive to end their sit-in an “attack on free speech”, and vowed to rally against the encampment crackdown until management meets their demands.
La Trobe University on Friday followed Deakin University in issuing a formal directive for protesters to end their encampment on the Bundoora campus, amid a wave of student pro-Palestine sit-ins across the nation.
Monash University on Friday said the student encampment on its Clayton campus, in Melbourne’s south-east, had ended, and the University of Queensland has signalled its aims for its pro-Palestine camps to end.
On Wednesday, the Australian National University (ANU) requested a group of pro-Palestine students disband their on-campus encampments or risk breaching the university’s code of conduct.
La Trobe University said it would continue to accommodate the right of students and staff to protest without an encampment. But in a statement on Saturday, the Students for Palestine La Trobe group said the university was “attempting to crush pro-Palestine encampments.”
At the University of Melbourne, a group of student activists have spent four nights camped inside the Arts West building, as administrators and protesters organisers remain in a deadlock over the sit-in.
Despite the University of Melbourne threatening police intervention, Guardian Australia understands administrators have not made a formal report of trespassing – which would be the trigger for police action.
The students have renamed the Arts West building Mahmoud Hall – in honour of a Palestinian student Mahmoud who they say intended to study at the university but was killed in Gaza last year.
Dana Alshaer, from the University of Melbourne for Palestine group, said on Friday the protesters had attempted to have an “open dialogue” but the university’s executives had not met their key demands.
Alshaer said it would be the “university’s decision” if they wanted to replicate the scenes where US police in riot gear stormed Columbia University to break up a pro-Palestine encampment.
In a statement on Friday, the university said it was “deeply concerned by this occupation” and warned that police “may choose to attend campus at any time”.
“This occupation presents a significant safety risk to our students and staff members, and has resulted in damage to university property,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said since Wednesday more than 8,300 students had been affected by the disruption and 247 classes rescheduled.
On Friday, Deakin Students for Palestine said an on-campus encampment would hold a “closing rally” next Wednesday, after defying a second request to disband. It vowed further protests next semester.
A spokesperson for Monash University said its encampment organisers notified the university on Friday that they “planned to pack up”.
They said the university would “continue to work with our student and community leaders, and with staff, to ensure safety and security on campus and, importantly, to meet the academic and pastoral needs of our staff and students”.
But the Students for Palestine Monash group said after nine student protesters were banned from the camp, the university’s security “forcibly dismantled” the site.
The group said a protest rally was planned for Tuesday at the Clayton campus.
“We are not going to stop protesting for Palestine,” they told Guardian Australia.
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU)‘s Monash branch upheld a motion on Saturday condemning management’s use of student misconduct regulations against the Monash protesters and demanding they be dropped.
In a statement, it said the encampment was a “non-violent and peaceful” form of protest and members were “deeply concerned” students were being targeted.
“This action raises important questions about whether Monash University is committed to protecting freedom of speech,” they said. “The right of staff and students to express political views is critical to the mission and function of universities.”
The University of Queensland’s chancellor, Peter Varghese, on Friday said it “cannot allow the encampments to continue indefinitely” on its grounds.
Its vice-chancellor, Prof Deborah Terry, said the “objective is to discontinue the camps as soon as possible” and the university was “continuing to engage with nominated protest representatives, to agree a peaceful resolution to the current camp arrangements”.
