US police arrested US presidential candidate Jill Stein while she was participating in a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Washington.
Stein, a Green Party presidential candidate, said on X platform that police also arrested her campaign manager Jason Cole and deputy campaign manager Kelly Merrill-Cayer as they supported a protest against the university’s ties to the war on Gaza.
She participated in the protest to support students who had set up a camp and announced that they would not leave until the university implemented several demands, including a boycott of Zionist academic institutions.
Student protests in the United States spread to McGill University, one of Canada’s leading universities, to show solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Students at McGill University held a banner reading “We will not allow our university to be an accomplice to genocide,” demanding support for the Palestinian people.
In front of the campus in Montreal, students set up a camp to express their support for Palestine, demanding that their university end its financial investments in companies that support Zionist attacks on Gaza, amid heavy security reinforcements outside the campus’s walls.
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein said she was arrested on Saturday while protesting the Israel-Hamas war on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis.
More than 80 individuals were arrested on Saturday after they “refused to leave after being asked multiple times,” according to a statement from the Washington University in St. Louis.
“All will face charges of trespassing and some may also be charged with resisting arrest and assault, including for injuries to police officers,” the school’s statement said.
Stein’s campaign account posted a video of the candidate being escorted off campus by two police officers, with her hands apparently tied behind her back. Her campaign said she was arrested along with her campaign manager, Jason Call, and deputy campaign manager, Kelly Merrill-Cayer.
Stein and the other protestors were released at around 2 a.m. from St. Louis County Jail, according to her campaign account.
The St. Louis County Jail referred The Hill to the university for further confirmation.
The protest comes amid a wave of similar anti-Israel protests on college campuses that have compelled administrators ultimately to instruct police to make arrests.
The WashU statement said, “a large group of individuals” arrived on campus on Saturday “with the intention of causing a significant disruption to the university.” After the group began “to set up a camp in violation of university policy, we made the decision to tell everyone present that they needed to leave.”
