Police put an end to an occupation in the university library on Thursday night. A group of around 20 pro-Palestine demonstrators had occupied the library on Thursday night and refused to leave after closing time. The activists were taken away and released just off campus.

Last night (Thursday), campaigners from the Nijmegen Student Encampment occupied a room in the University Library (UB). The occupation started at around 20.00, when the building was still open. Protesters hung Palestinian flags and banners in the building’s reading room.

The group, some 20 strong, was asked to leave at 22.00 – closing time. However, they refused to do so. Instead, they symbolically set up several tents in the reading room.

‘Open occupation’

‘We will stay here until the university meets our demands’, said a spokesperson. Earlier this week, the university announced that it would sever ties with two Israeli institutions. According to the action group, however, that does not go far enough. ‘Severing all ties with Israeli institutions is now more urgent than ever. There are 14,000 babies dying in Gaza, but Israel still refuses to allow them access to humanitarian aid.’

The spokesperson of Nijmegen Student Encampment talked about an ‘open occupation’. Previous building occupations involved barricades, but that was not the case on Thursday night. During opening hours, other students were able to study as usual. ‘We deliberately chose this tactic to show that we are not against students.’

Just after midnight, things had gone far enough, according to a university press release. “The occupation constitutes a breach of the peace. Because this is a criminal offence, the police were called in. They arrived shortly after midnight to remove the activists from the building.”

Arm in arm

A total of seven police vans with around 15 officers arrived at the UB This time, the police clearly took a different approach than in the crackdown on the 7th of May, when one activist was bitten on the leg by a police dog and another broke a kneecap after being hit with the baton.

The arrests in the UB proceeded in a much more orderly fashion this time. The protesters, who stood arm in arm in front of the large stained-glass window of the reading room, were taken out one by one by police officers. A few were dragged away amid cheers from the rest of the group. Outside, they were told what was going to happen, after which they were searched and put into vans.

Once the building was empty, the police left. A stone’s throw from the campus, near the petrol station on Heyendaalseweg, the group was released.