Princeton students head to trial nearly a year after Gaza encampment

 

Princeton students are heading to trial over charges from the school's Gaza solidarity encampment last spring. Despite intimidation from the university, the activists are insisting on defending their right to protest for Palestinian liberation.

Nearly one whole year after students at Princeton University held an encampment on their campus in solidarity with Gaza, 12 students and one postdoctoral fellow will head to trial. In a statement released by Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest (PIAD) — the main organization behind Princeton’s Gaza solidarity encampment — organizers claim that the trial date “arose from a dangerous process of intimidation and coercion.”

The trial is scheduled for April 14-16 and the students face charges of “defiant trespass” for briefly holding a building occupation at Clio Hall, home of the Princeton Graduate School’s administrative offices. These activists, deemed the Clio 13, face up to 30 days in jail and a $500 fine. Their larger concern, however, is whether the Princeton administration succeeds at discouraging future activism against Israel’s oppression of Palestine.

Graduate student and PIAD member Aditi Rao explained how Palestine activism has called into question the culture of Princeton University.

“[The administration] prides itself on neutrality and ambivalence, and so it did not want there to be this narrative of so many students collecting themselves together for the cause of liberation, for the cause of a radical divestiture movement,” Rao told Mondoweiss.  (more...)

Princeton students head to trial nearly a year after Gaza encampment