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About 250 University of Michigan students walked out of their classes at 3:30 p.m. Monday and gathered outside Rackham Graduate School to prepare for a march on campus organized by the TAHRIR Coalition, a group of more than 90 pro-Palestine organizations. At approximately 5:08 p.m. outside the Kinesiology Building, an altercation broke out, leading U-M Division of Public Safety & Security officers to arrest one individual. Students preventing the passage of the vehicle transporting the arrested individual were pushed aside and some were pepper sprayed by DPSS officers.
Engineering senior Jenin Alameddin, SAFE member, spoke to the crowd outside Rackham and said that Monday’s demonstration was held to recognize the last year of Palestinian resistance and pay tribute to the Palestinians killed by Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
“We do not just stand here to mourn the dead,” Alameddin said. “We stand here to honor the resistance. On Oct. 7, 2023, Palestinian resistance fighters launched a powerful attack on Israeli military positions, the fighters broke through the heavily fortified barriers surrounding Gaza, showing that no wall, no matter how high or how strong, can suppress the will of a people fighting for their homeland.”
LSA senior Alifa Chowdhury, Central Student Government president, spoke at the walkout and said she believes it is important for U-M students to take action to help Palestinians. Chowdhury has recently discussed efforts to pass a CSG budget which would send aid to Gaza.
“We must recognize our own immense privilege without drones or bombs over our heads,” Chowdhury said. “We must learn from the people of Palestine what it means for education to be a responsibility. Our responsibility is clear. Our university is complicit in sending billions of dollars to a genocide. We are complicit through our silence and privilege.”
Art & Design senior Eaman Ali, a member of the TAHRIR Coalition, told the crowd about the encampment raid that took place on May 21, during which police forcibly removed the encampment, arresting four protesters and pepper spraying others.
“The UMich Gaza solidarity encampment stood for a month this past spring when on May 21 it was violently raided by police in riot gear at the request of administration,” Ali said.
As the speeches concluded, the students took to the streets and began their march. After the arrest, they rerouted the march to the DPSS station to demand the individual’s release.
U-M alum Salma Hamamy, former Students Allied for Freedom and Equality president, told The Michigan Daily the arrest was sudden and confusing to many individuals.
“Once we crossed in front of the Kinesiology Building, we began to notice that police officers handcuffed and arrested one of our comrades in the moment, and everybody was pretty confused as to why,” Hamamy said. “Nobody could really understand as to why the police arrested this individual. It was very sudden, this person was just chanting just as much as anybody else.”
Hamamy said the protesters began demanding the release of the individual when the police pepper sprayed students and pushed them around.
“Protesters jumped in and demanded his immediate release, and the police continued to push through, brutalizing students using pepper spray, pepper spraying dozens of students in the process and community members, leaving many people quite traumatized — however, not in fear to come and continue protesting,” Hamamy said. “Everybody marched over immediately to the DPSS police station, and upon arrival, our friend was released.”
In an email to The Daily, Melissa Overton, deputy chief of police for DPSS, wrote that DPSS was still investigating the situation and officers can take precautions they deem necessary when handling a potentially dangerous situation.
“This is an active investigation with details still being confirmed, however, it’s important to note that in some circumstances, officers may employ crowd control measures if deemed necessary to manage the situation, make arrests, or ensure the safety of individuals involved,” Overton wrote.
In an interview with The Daily, Ali said she believes the arrest shows the administration is afraid of what the student body can do.
“They released our friend who was arrested within the hour because we came here, we showed up and we made our presence known,” Ali said. “The administration is very clearly resorting to these tactics because they are afraid of our power, and they’re afraid of the power that we leverage as a student body, as a university.”
Daily Staff Reporters Alyssa Tisch and Audrey Shabelski can be reached at tischaa@umich.edu and audres@umich.edu. Daily News Editor Sneha Dhandapani contributed to the reporting of this article.
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