'Dozens of police' arrest Pro-Palestinian protesters at UConn; Connecticut senator calls for president to defend students' First Amendment rights

Demonstrators who gathered outside of the UConn Police Department to support the arrested said organizers were still deciding whether or not to reestablish an encampment on campus.

Some said that students intend to launch a hunger strike if the university suspends the protesters.

Muneeb Syed, a junior who serves as the president of the Muslim Student Association emphasized that camping was never the focus of the demonstrations.

“We’re now going to start thinking about what is our next strategy,” Syed said. “We want to see what are the options that we have in hand and what can we do to best maximize our voices to get those demands.”

Sayed said he wants the administration to know that the protesters are “here to stay.”

The arrested students exited the police station one at a time over the course of hours. Each time a student walked out of the doors, the crowd of students, faculty and others clapped and cheered. Cars that passed by beeped their horns in support. By 2 p.m. organizers said that 11 of 23 arrested had been released.

Yale University, where students started an encampment days before UConn’s, also cracked down on protesters, clearing the encampment at Campus Cross and threatening students with arrest and suspension if they stood in the way, according to Yale Daily News.

The UConn students, calling themselves UConn Divest coalition, said the goal of the encampment is “to protest UConn’s complicity in the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and its shameful contributions to militarism around the globe, and to advocate for a liberated Palestine.”

The group said they will not leave campus until UConn agrees to an enumerated a list of demands, that the university “disclose and divest from occupation and genocide;” “sever ties to the war industry;” “sever ties to the settler-colonial state of Israel;” and “end repression of Palestinian and Pro-Palestinian activists.”

The group points in particular to Raytheon Technologies (RTX), Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and calls for Alumni Trustee Bryan Pollard, associate general counsel for RTX, to be removed from the Board of Trustees.

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