In the early hours of Tuesday (30th April) morning, dozens of pro-Palestine protesters occupied Hamilton Hall at Columbia University by securing doors with zip ties, shifting metal gates to impede access, and obstructing entrances with wooden tables and seats. Later, the rioters took over the building and draped it with a Palestinian flag. They also renamed the iconic “Hamilton Hall” as ‘Hind’s Hall’. Following this, the New York Police Department arrested numerous protestors and cleared the building.
As reported earlier, the Pro-Palestine rioters quickly covered security cameras with tape and black trash bags and even clashed with other students while briefly holding some of the staff as hostages. After rioters took over Hamilton Hall in an overnight attack, the White House said that taking over campus buildings is wrong.
Notably, these violent protests are led by two main protest groups – Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD).
Pro-Palestine protestor demands ‘humanitarian aid’ for Hamilton Hall occupiers
Funnily enough, a pro-Palestine protestor identified as Johanna King-Slutsky while delivering the demands of the Hamilton Hall occupiers demanded ‘humanitarian aid’ for them. “I mean, well I guess it’s ultimately a question of what kind of community and obligation Columbia feels it has to its students. Do you want students to die of dehydration and starvation or get severely ill even they disagree with you? If the answer is no, then you should allow basic—I mean it’s crazy to say because we are on an Ivy League campus but this is like basic humanitarian aid we’re asking for. Like, could people please have a glass of water,” Slutsky said.
She was grilled by a journalist who said: “But they [protestors] did put themselves in that, very deliberately. In that situation, in that position, so it seems like you’re saying ‘We want to be revolutionaries, we want to take over the building, now would you please bring us some food and water.”
Interestingly, Johanna King-Slutsky is a typical “woke” actively involved in campus politics. On Tuesday morning, King-Slutsky was identified as a PhD student on Columbia’s website; but, by the evening, that page had disappeared.
Slutsky is doing PhD in “romantic imagination”. As per the Columbia biography, Slutsky is “interested in theories of the imagination and poetry as interpreted through a Marxian lens in order to update and propose an alternative to historicist ideological critiques of the Romantic imagination”, whatever that means.
Before joining Columbia, Johanna King-Slutsky worked as a political strategist for leftist and progressive causes” and is actively involved in “higher education labour movement”.
One of the Instagram posts suggests that Slutsky identifies as a lesbian. The ‘romantic imagination’ enthusiast has also participated in a “pride” march in 2013.
New York Police arrests protestors
Meanwhile, the New York Police Department came into action and arrested over a hundred pro-Intifada protestors at Columbia University and City College of New York. Reports say that the maximum arrests were made from Columbia University which has also been the epicentre of pro-Palestine protests spread across US varsities. The building has been cleared now and declared pro-Palestine encampments as “illegal”. The action came after Mayor Eric Adams warned the protestors to “leave the area” saying that the protests have been hijacked by “external factors”.
As seen in the visuals of the police crackdown, the NYPD officers donning riot gear forcibly nabbed the protestors and removed media persons as well.
Interestingly, when it comes to protests on its own soil, the US takes stringent measures like mass arrests, using tear gas, rubber bullets, violently crushing the protests and whatnot. However, the very same US gives sanctimonious sermons on human rights, freedom of expression, right to protest, and democratic values when the Indian government acts against the same elements in the same manner.
George Soros’s proxy Sunita Vishwanath visits Columbia University
Although Columbia student-led magazine’s editor says that the anti-Israel protests are largely student-fueled, he does not deny the involvement of outsiders in the protests on the varsity campus. Interestingly, Sunita Vishwanath, the co-founder of a US-based anti-Hindu organisation, ironically named Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR) also visited Columbia University encampments. It is pertinent to note that Sunita Vishwanath has earned notoriety by organising anti-Hindu and anti-India events.
In February this year, HfHR announced a program with the sinister objective of blaming Hinduism for supposedly being ‘anti-pluralism.’ Notably, Sunita Vishwanath has also tried to create hysteria and panic among Indian Muslims about the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in 2019. She is also the co-founder of an organisation named ‘Women for Afghan Women’, which is funded by George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF)/ Open Society Institute (OSI).
HfHR was formed in the year 2019 by the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) and the Organization for Minorities of India (OFMI), a DisInfo Lab investigation revealed.
Back in 2021, HfHR also endorsed the anti-Hindu event ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’ conference. It also came up with a “special toolkit” to propagate against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his State visit to the US in June 2023.
It is pertinent to recall that in June 2023, Sunita Vishwanath had organised a talk event at Hudson Institute for Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during his 10-day US tour.
Interestingly, the Congress Party had in October last year declared support for Palestine nine days after Hamas attacked Israel leaving thousands of Israeli civilians dead.
Protesters set up tents in ‘Shaheen Bagh’ style, calling them ‘Liberated encampment zones’
Following the arrest of 108 Columbia University protesters, including Isra Hirsi, daughter of Islamist and Hamas sympathiser Rep. Ilhan Omar, institutions including New York University, Yale University, the University of Illinois, and the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Southern California, organised protests and extended ‘solidarity’. The protestors declared spaces occupied by them as ‘Liberated Encampment Zones’ inside these universities.