US: Police detain 200 at Palestine protest camps in 3 US universities

However, members of the pro-Palestinian protest movement at the university pushed back on those claims, and video posted from the site appears to show people holding Israeli flags using the slur, in an apparent attempt to antagonise pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

In Bloomington in the Midwest, the Indiana University Police Department arrested 23 people as they cleared a campus protest camp, the Indiana Daily Student newspaper reported.

On the opposite side of the country, the Arizona State University Police Department arrested 69 people for trespassing after the group set up an “unauthorised encampment” on campus.

Arizona state officials said a protest group, “most of whom were not ASU students, faculty or staff”, set up a camp on Friday and ignored repeated orders to disperse.

Meanwhile, at Washington University in St Louis, at least 80 people were arrested, including US presidential candidate Jill Stein and her campaign manager.

Across the US, university leaders have tried, and largely failed, to quell the demonstrations, which often saw the police intervening violently, with videos emerging from different states showing hundreds of students – and even faculty members – being forcefully arrested.

The protesters have demanded amnesty for students and faculty members disciplined or fired for protesting. About a week ago at Columbia University in New York, more than 100 pro-Palestinian activists were arrested.

What started at the Columbia campus has turned into a nationwide showdown between students and administrators over pro-Palestine protests and the restrictions on free speech.

In the past 10 days, hundreds of students have been arrested, suspended, put on probation and, in rare cases, expelled from colleges, including Yale University, the University of Southern California, Vanderbilt University and the University of Minnesota.

A few universities had to cancel graduation ceremonies, while others have seen their buildings occupied by the protesters.

Students taking ‘big risks’

Al Jazeera’s John Hendren, reporting from Princeton University in New Jersey, said “the price of protests can be high” for the students occupying college campuses.

“Students are taking some big risks at these protests. If they violate university rules, they can be expelled. And here at Princeton, tuition is over $50,000 a year,” he said. “For many of them, it’s an education they have been looking forward to all their lives.”

Princeton student Sam Bisno told Al Jazeera taking such risks showed how “passionate” students were about the issue. “People are willing to put it all on the line. But we know we have the power in numbers,” he said.

Momodou Taal was among four students whom Cornell University in New York state “temporarily suspended” on Saturday for setting up an encampment on its campus.

He told Al Jazeera the protesting students received threats and were subjected to doxing, which refers to the posting of the personal information of an individual on the internet without their consent. He said such students received no protection from their school.

“We no longer have faith in the administration to be a place safe for Muslim students, for Arab students, for Palestinian students and by and large those students of colour and pro-Palestinian students,” Taal said.

Maysam Elghazali, an organiser of the protests at Emory University in Atlanta, said the demonstrating students had three demands.

“Number one, that Emory disclose all of its financial investments. Number two, that they divest from all Israeli companies, and number three, that they provide continued amnesty and protection to all the students who were unjustly arrested,” she told Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, college protests against the “genocide” of the Palestinians in Gaza have also spread to schools in Canada, Europe and Australia.

Canada’s first campus protest camp for Gaza came up at McGill University in Montreal on Saturday.

Broadcaster CBC reported protesters were demanding McGill and Concordia universities “divest from funds implicated in the Zionist state as well as [cut] ties with Zionist academic institutions”.