Deakin University the first in Australia to order dismantling of Pro-Palestine student encampment

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Deakin University has become the first university in Australia to order a Pro-Palestine student encampment be dismantled. It comes after a heated 24 hours on campuses across Melbourne, where groups from both sides of Israeli-Palestinian issue have felt under attack.

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00:00 "Free, free Palestine"

00:04 Facing off two groups deeply divided.

00:09 Monash University, the latest site where pro-Palestine and pro-Israel students have locked eyes,

00:15 but it's the presence of a pro-Palestine group

00:18 "Shame, shame, Australia shame"

00:21 outside a Jewish memorial event overnight that has offended Jewish students who say

00:26 they had controversial slogans yelled at them.

00:29 "From the river to the sea" calls for the annihilation of the Jewish people in the land

00:33 of Israel.

00:34 "Do you interpret that phrase as hate speech?"

00:37 "Hate speech.

00:38 It is hate speech and it's not protected here on campus."

00:40 "I reckon if you asked those people chanting it, heaps of them wouldn't have a clue, wouldn't

00:46 be able to find the Jordan on a map.

00:50 It's a provocative act."

00:51 "I would totally reject the idea that our camp is anti-Semitic in any way, shape or

00:55 form."

00:56 "I'm excited to ask Albanese if he knows where his humanity is."

00:59 At Deakin University's Burwood campus, this encampment, which is now cordoned off, has

01:04 been told to move on.

01:06 The university releasing a statement today saying the group is compromising the right

01:11 of everyone in the Deakin community to access and enjoy a safe and secure learning and work

01:16 environment free of impediment, intimidation and harassment.

01:20 Police have been contacted by multiple universities asking them to intervene but are yet to take

01:26 action.

01:27 The students at this encampment have declared they're going nowhere and say any efforts

01:32 to forcibly remove them will only put a bigger magnifying glass on the issue.

01:37 In America, when police and security were brought in to smash up peaceful protest encampments,

01:43 those protests only grew.

01:44 "Universities, they can be a place for protest, but that protest must be peaceful, it must

01:51 be respectful."

01:52 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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