One person was arrested after UCLA campus police ordered participants in an “unauthorized demonstration” to disperse Monday evening.
The pro-Palestinian demonstration included about 40 people, UCLA police said, and took place in Dickson Court North, an area not “designated for public expression” under school policy.
The demonstration was organized by a student organization called Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine. It involved a makeshift sukkah, a temporary structure associated with the weeklong Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which is celebrated through Wednesday.
The student body said it planned to welcome observers of all faiths who support their movement to visit the sukkah, which it had hoped to preserve for seven days.
“All who believe in justice and liberation for Palestine are welcome to this interfaith observation of Sukkot,” the organization wrote in an Instagram post.
But those plans proved short-lived, as UCPD argued that the structure, as well as the use of “amplified sound,” violated the school’s controversial “Time, Place and Manner” policy, which sets rules for when and where students may exercise their First Amendment rights.
Banners reading ‘UCPD is fascist. Abolition Now’ and ‘Divest from Genocide’ were among the messages displayed by the protesters, according to the school’s student newspaper, the Daily Brown.
The student-run publication described a scene with dozens of campus police and security officers, some dressed in riot gear, surrounding the sukkah structure, as well as counter-protesters shouting against the pro-Palestinian demonstration.
Video shared by the Daily Bruin shows one person being detained by several officers, although it is unclear if that person is the same person police say was arrested for failing to disperse.
By 10 p.m., UCPD said the area had been cleared of all activity. The sukkah was taken down about an hour earlier by police and UCLA prison staff, police said UCLA Radiothe university’s student-run radio station.
The demonstration at UCLA also coincided with an appearance by controversial right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro. Shapiro, who is Jewish, is among the most popular and outspoken pro-Israel political commentators.
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