We demand that the Washtenaw County prosecutor’s office DROP ALL PENDING CHARGES AGAINST PROTESTORS, and that NO FURTHER CHARGES be brought against students who took part in the November 17th demonstration at the Ruthven Building. Eli Savit and Victoria Burton-Harris, we demand that you not be complicit in the repression of free speech and the criminalization of public assembly on campus! The communities you serve demand better!”
TAHRIR Coalition denounces police intimidation and repression at UM
December 19, 2023
On 11/17/2023, the Division of Public Safety and Security (DPSS) arrested 41 students attending a pro-Palestinian demonstration for trespassing. Since then, the University of Michigan Police Department (UMPD), an arm of DPSS, has escalated its repression of pro-Palestinian activism on campus to a shocking degree.
Early in the morning on 11/22/2023, a student activist and member of the TAHRIR Coalition woke to five police at their door. More police arrived shortly after, totaling about a dozen. The UMPD held a valid search and seizure warrant for the student's electronics. After confiscating the student's electronics, the police arrested the student, again declining to explain or provide probable cause for their actions. UMPD detained the student at their station for hours without access to a lawyer. In the mid-afternoon, having collected the student's photographs and fingerprints, the police threatened the student with extraordinary and unfounded charges before taking the student's DNA. The police released the student on the same day. However, the police continue to hold their electronics.
On 12/7/2023, members of the UM community peacefully waited in line to attend the public Regent's Meeting at Ruthven. As DPSS admitted attendees, they arrested another student who had, along with hundreds of others, attended a demonstration at the Ruthven Building the previous month, on 11/17/2023. Officers isolated the student who was trying to enter the public meeting in a separate room and threatened them with extraordinary and unfounded charges. The student was detained for hours as police took their DNA and fingerprints and seized their cell phone. The police released the student after a few hours, however, they continue to hold the student's cell phone.
Both students continue to be threatened by these unwarranted charges.
Let us be clear: These arrests and threatened charges are nothing more than intimidation and blatant political repression. We recognize this as an attempt to throttle student activism around Palestine, and believe that the police are going on "fishing expeditions." We denounce these spurious investigations of and manufactured charges against our fellow organizers.
Our best defense against the police is a loud and proud collective response of students, workers, faculty, and community members who publicly and unabashedly affirm our right to protest. Many students before us have faced unjust arrests and charges for campus activism. They prevailed (https://twitter.com/uaw2865/status/1719473503701770402). We will, too.
The criminalization of student activism has become the hallmark of UM President Santa Ono's administration, which has continuously refused to engage with POC-led student organizations regarding the ongoing genocide in Palestine and the increasing Islamophobia and racism on campus. These recent events highlight a troubling trend at the University of Michigan: the use of police to intimidate and crack down on social movements. DPSS attempted similar intimidation tactics during the Winter and Spring 2023 strike (https://www.geo3550.org/2023/05/31/campus-cops-intimidate-grad-workers-in-ann-arbor-michigan/). We strongly condemn this pattern of repression and the University of Michigan’s demonstrated discrimination against historically marginalized student groups and their authoritarian attempts to shut down POC-led organizing on campus.
Moreover, these cases of repression are not unique to the University of Michigan. Across the so-called United States, campus, state, and federal police have been activated against student organizers fighting for Palestinian freedom. As part of a wider fascistic sweep against anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, and anti-patriarchal coalitional organizing for Palestine, the police and the courts are seeking to stamp out any form of resistance. We take this moment to reaffirm our commitment to liberatory struggle, to reject criminalization broadly, and to restate our support for these two students and the 41 students arrested at Ruthven on 11/17/2023.
ACTION ITEMS: What can you do?
1. Tell Washtenaw Prosecutor Eli Savit's office to drop the charges. Join us in defending activists' right of free speech and right to resist by demanding that the police and Savit's office stop persecuting over 40 student activists, including two the students threatened with additional charges. Head to bit.ly/UMRepression for details.
2. Donate to and Share our legal fund (https://givebutter.com/um-palestine-legalfund) , linked in our bio, to support student activists as we collectively fight against the rising political repression, as well as police intimidation.
3. STUDENT ACTIVISTS IN AND OUTSIDE U-M: Be sure to Know Your Rights if you or anyone you know is visited by the police. Head to bit.ly/UMRepression for details.