Around 30 demonstrators have been arrested after they occupied an engineering building at the University of Washington as part of a pro-Palestinian protest, AP reports.
The Students United for Palestinian Equality and Return (SUPER) group said it was calling on the US university to cut its ties with Boeing over the aerospace giant’s military contracts and weapons supply to the offensive in Gaza . The engineering building had received a $10 million donation from Boeing, according to the website of the university, located in the Pacific Northwest.
“A number of individuals temporarily occupied the Interdisciplinary Engineering Building and created a dangerous environment in and around the building” on evening, the university said in a statement.
“Individuals who mostly covered their faces blocked access to two streets outside the building, blocked entrances and exits to the building and ignited fires in two dumpsters on a street outside.” Law enforcement agencies cleared the building around 11pm.
“About 30 individuals who occupied the building were arrested,” the university said, adding that charges would include “trespassing, property destruction and disorderly conduct, and conspiracy to commit all three”.
A SUPER group spokesperson, Oliver Marchant, told ABC News that all people who had entered the building were arrested.
The group said on Facebook that Boeing had received access to UW’s campus, research facilities and student labour in exchange for its donations to the university.
The university said a student organisation had been suspended and condemned its actions as “antisemitic”, without specifying which group.
The University of Washington “strongly condemns this illegal building occupation and the antisemitic statement that was issued by a suspended student group”, it said.
