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tv   NEWS 30min  Al Jazeera  May 2, 2024 2:00pm-2:30pm AST

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are professionally trained and so forth. they, they're not going to win the battle, but they are, as you say, not lashing out or trying to i what do we don't injure the police? they're just trying to hold, hold their brown a while in the chance though, we want peace, we want justice. still a flag flying flag flying older than not of protesters are gathered in the center of the camp surrounded by police. now police applying pressure on them. smoke everywhere and the console, the boom of the cushions are nice. there's, there's still there. the
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it is $1100.00 gmc, you joined us says we look at scenes from university of california in los angeles is and they come in there for testers for test the pro palestinian protest is testing against a is really actions in gaza. and they have been surrounded by police from the la police departments in california, hyatt control and others. and now the police has slowly but surely dismantling. barricade and reverse paraphernalia of the protest is taking place and we've seen people being arrested as time goes on the scene, images of people in handcuffs. the others very much holding the line. the police of the, in very large numbers, at least have been on with back to so be careful in the arms in the sides,
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but there's nothing, any real diamonds and no see no sense of regression will bind it to him for a test to really from the police, as far as we can see him, in fact demonstrate designs shouting consistency. this is a peaceful process. the diesel protested be flashbanc is going off. you can see the smoke in the background that it seems to be a scene of some tales that fits it. slowly but surely, the few seemed to be dismantling protests. they all determined to hold for them. however, the purchasers, let's go back to rubber up at the top of the, uh, now could you just give us a, a summary of how things stand at this moment? well, nick, at the moment the police have breach the encampment, the they're taking me away. student protesters and the zip tie and fox. they've also moved out the supporters of the student processors at the gods. a
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solidarity and cameron who were gathered in this area in the periphery of the, the police, a sort of sealed off area. the police have moved them out and quite a few people were arrested there as well. we seem to be undergoing some find out doing some kind of formation here now. and in the camp itself, the police are steadily pressing back on the protesters, the purchasers. frank, as you said, to fold that wine as much as they possibly wanted. see if you get perhaps a little bit closer. i don't think we're allowed to cross this barrier 0, but it seems the spot.
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yeah. so right over there, that's where the encampment is, or was a lot of the, uh, the uh, fencing and good palisades that was purchased is that a record has been torn down. you can hear a loud speaker repeating over and over again a warning to the protesters that if they don't trust 1st, they will be arrested. this has all gone down in about an hour's time. and it's followed a 7 or 8 hour long stand off were police were gathered in march link, getting their uh the chips in a row and getting, getting that prepared. while the protesters prepared for you and have the assault on their camp, which came to resemble less a camp in recent days than
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a then it outside of a fortress. but the overwhelming number of police who came in from l. a. p. d, the los angeles county sheriff's department, california highway patrol, good prevail here in this instance of bringing this protest to and it's going to be extremely controversial. i think how this went down what the decisions that were made, that the decision that this was necessary was it, was there any other alternative perhaps with some dialogue with protesters to at least talk about their demands. it's really never happened. but the other factor is that 2427 hours ago. now, the toner of protesters is rarely support. israel supporters came
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here and rioted and attacked the camp of creating a rates, a sort of picture of disorder and chaos. and that may have to have the authorities run the university as well as the bay or the governor, the other higher authorities in the state of california and say, okay, that's, that's enough that we, we can't have this anymore as well. but while you talk, just remind us of what the, what the test is all for size. of course, the primary difference for the university divest itself investments in israel and companies and other entities, stop educational exchanges. it's really cities and to stop, to divest,
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invest from u. s. companies, the manufacturing weapons used by the israeli army to a quite a real succession of those. those flashbacks here. and i'm almost getting the other demands that the students had worked for the versity to make a state policy war on gaza for no area action to be taken against their protest. determined to stay in the camp and, and continue to project until those demands. so that protest leaders will continue to agitate or protest in one way or another.
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and then now some other tactics they are with and they won't be in prison. any length of time the charge is probably going to be pretty minor. so they'll most likely release on their own regardless and can get back to their protests, but then they have to, man, we have to find out what the university is going to do well to try to discipline them somehow. it suspend them or prevent it from graduating so a lot still still to be figured out there. well, thanks for that for the time being. thanks very much. and the, just a reminder that you can hear those flash things going off or they do not close physical injury pesa. they create this very loud noise that you can have consistently ready to disorient more, let's say a new part of the police tactics to try and disperse this crowd,
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often so many days and the indeed 70 as loudly as the police were waiting for to take action and then from now finally half, let's begin showing back to the comforts you'll use a video. griffith and the writer joins us now for you see la from the campus and showing understand your within the area of the incumbents. is that right? yes. on looking at the enhancement currently launch growing what are called prepared or needs. they're basically lob beautician, which makes it sound right then they just 1st went go down. i saw a few people leaving the area of the camp and one of them shouted, they're trying to steal it over to the entrance to use the away, right. on the other end of the board at the large amount of people's shouting,
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at least a shame on you. i bird i have uh, which is uh uh, on our and then uh for jordan. um and i'm seeing a lot of onlookers. uh, seeing lot of people um yelling at the police as well as on one side of the outside, i saw a young woman, a sort of telling the protesters to say strong, telling them that it is okay to be afraid. but that they needed to remain. and beginning to see a lot of people sort of running around, i fell on horses removing the barricade to the encampment. and i am being uh, just quite a bit of nervous its, a few people are scared. if the people look, be determined to keep you in standing as long as possible, and a few people need to be going towards the police line to sort of a wrecked and even larger barrier inside the equipment itself. it seems like most
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people are leaving. so not all right, i just want to draw us that so that we have full 100 will say within the incompetent. and so what do you, what do you estimate now in terms of numbers and just how intact is the incumbent at this moment? because before the police started this phase of the action, it was pretty well fortified was net so. so how does it look? it's very difficult to say how many people are in the cabinets. there is a really a place outside of the in campus to look in and be able to count how many, however, from what it's being and i've seen quite a few people leaving the encampment. mm hm. um, so my guess is whatever is going on, it's a much smaller scale. what do you mean camping itself? well outside it's being it's, it's growing up again. so would you say that the please? slowly but surely. uh, successfully, uh, dismantling the conference of cameron itself. i wouldn't say they are currently
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successful. however, it does seem as though they are winning the battle right now. and in terms of those students who remain clearly the very resolution determined in the stones to hold the line. i would certainly agree with that. if not just a few things i didn't get me to, i haven't been able to interview because obviously they're very busy with folding down. i do can't went through the fortress or whatever you would have gone currently. um, but i the people that i've seen leaving this even are not leaving just to go home. they're leaving to go towards other areas. the cabinet. in fact, right now as we speak, i'm starting to see people moving back in the dfcs. they're running over right. how in terms of arrests, what have you seen that we've seen images of people being tied up with hand ties
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and taken away. have you seen many arrests and i have not personally seen too many rest. although i have heard from quite a few people that are off the covering, there's been a large amount of i know. ready there's and helicopter footage, watching people get to that side. however, my, my guess is based on what i'm hearing law enforcement, many of those are going to be on fairly late charges. many of them will be released on the, on the cognizance or o r. i will probably be outside of custody fairly quickly within the day, given how tens this situation is and how determines the protest is all to make their voices heard. and the, the fact that the police have been given this task of dismantling the incumbent. how would you assess the police action so far in terms of, you know, how they've dealt with that is, and they've been fairly careful and cautious. would you say?
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i certainly wouldn't call it careful in the past. uh well the beginning of their operation was i would say about 8 hours ago. um there came a point where uh they finally got into the um, people shouted uh, i thought you said it makes it projectile going towards them. and eventually on their 1st run, they actually retreated away from the one officer, actually threatened the crowd and said that they were kidnapping the police by not letting them be. i then the crowd eventually did i. i've seen a lot of a couple. i've seen a lot of things thrown. um, i've also seen a few less people get deployed towards people. so when they did that for the night, we do appreciate to your guy, what is the kind of what's going on right now. the at that you say
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a campus in los angeles. let's cross to washington dc. we can join thomas gift, who is an associate professor and director of the center on us politics at u. c. l in london university college london at thomas. first off. how do you assess what we're seeing here? what do you think of it? thanks so much for helping me. it's certainly a contentious momentum. what we're seeing here is how the combination of anger and frustration and hostility, i think on both sides that has been bubbling over for quite some time. obviously these protesters are very determined. we've seen it not just that you see a way, but at columbia, harvard detail, for instance, the list really goes on. and the same time, you know, police as well as authorities that these universities are struggling to figure out exactly how to deal with it. it's not a situation necessarily, but they have been faced with in quite some time and they're trying to strike
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a balance between maintaining law and order and enforcing regulations and rules, but at the same time being respectful of the rights of individuals to express their views on controversial issues, right. and on that in your capacity as the university professor, how do you think the university here in this case of the you see a it has handled it well, i really think that there has been quite significant variation across different campuses. and the extent to which these presidents and university administrators have effectively dealt with these challenges. i do think that ins chase is like a u. c. l. a and columbia where we've seen more confrontation with the police probably hasn't been handled that well, obviously i'm not privy to all of the details and certainly a challenging situation. but i think a lot of it stands from an inability to enforce some of these rules and regulations from the very outset, to be clear about what students can and cannot do as they choose to violate the
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rules and regulations. and they know that they are going to be dealt with appropriately. i think any professor or any academic doesn't like to see students in a situation where they are confronted police. it can be dangerous and want to encourage students to be able to express their views and open uh open contacts. but at the same time, you know, when students do engage in civil disobedience and they have, they have to understand that they're going to be consequences to that. are the alternative courses to leave the process and comments in place. but that in itself encourages counts of probably just as we saw a 24 hours ago. that's right. absolutely. which is why a lot of these university administrators are kind of in a no win situation. and i do think that it becomes a problem at some point when some of these protests become disruptive at columbia. for example, they were blocking off huge swears of the campus and including other students from
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using it for which they're paying $6070000.00 a year. and tuition had to move some classes online rather than in person. so to the extent that this becomes disruptive to the educational enterprise, i do think that it becomes problematic. and universities are within their rights to, to crack down on some of this while at the same time, of course, respecting the rights of students to express their views. okay, i'd like to speak to you now, is that with your director of the central us politics household now, if i may, in terms of the bite and administration implications there as well. you know, i actually think the data suggests that most americans don't prioritize the war and gaza as much as maybe some time the media suggest. if you look at pulling from harvard, which, which collects opinions on, i'm
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a representative sample of young americans, only 2 percent listing is real conflict as kind of the most important issue and that tracks very closely to the national electorate as a whole. so if do you think that this term sort of affect to the election on the margins? i mean, certainly this galvanize is a certain segment of progresses and, and partisan democrats. but i, i do think that they're also risking of backslash if that's where the moderates and republicans are seeing some of what donald trump is presenting as chaos. and it actually makes these americans that sort of less sympathetic to the cause of these protesters are advocating for is there any equivalence here? the, with the vietnam protests with the sixty's because they certainly had implications on your selection. didn't they definitely, did. i mean, i think that this situation is
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a little bit different. i think you can draw some parallels, but i think we should sort of overstate the extent to which they're a direct one to one match. i mean with vietnam, of course, was americans fighting overseas and coming back in, you know, body bags that hang on to off ends and the extent to which that really envelops the totality of american politics. not just on university campuses. what was somewhat distinctive. do you think that in this case a lot of americans are obviously watching this closely? it's making many headlines, but most of it is still confined to campuses predict predominantly relatively a lead procedures campuses. and we also should remember that the students engaged in this protest are fairly and representative of student bodies of the schools as well as young americans general. yeah, columbia, for example, only about 200 students were arrested, whereas type school enrolls about 30000. so now this is still a subset of
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a subset of, of young voters. it may be a subset, but it's a pretty loud subset, isn't it? and do you think it's, it's loud enough to encourage the divestment from companies that support is relevant. war and garza for universities as a request real quickly and say, request yeah, absolutely, absolutely. is it certainly allow progress? i think universities will um, you know, evaluate the extent to which they're invested in, in israel. but i, i don't expect there to be very significant changes in policy. we have to remember also, well, these protests are very loud, very vocal. there's also significant populations in including of alumni, students, faculty as well. don't share the opinion that's being expressed on campus and their views also need to be taken into account. i'm so i'm not sure for tennessee wide scale investments by universities as a result of these protests or i won't even have the matter. thanks very much.
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indeed for speaking to us, that's a very interesting, it's a thomas gift associate professor and director of the center of us from us police easy, thanks very much as a back into the situation. i do see ya on the compass that the incompetence showing the effect and they're coming to the videographer and a writer joins us live again from that show and how things shape you up at this moment. well things have really begun to open up as far as the viewpoint it's being tempted from side. 3 and what i'm seeing is what was what i reported as be a 100. 3 and maybe even more than $400.00 from what i can see right now for bi vantage point, i would say that there's less than a few dozen. quite a few people are leaving in order to get on the street and run the officers on a few different sides. what i am seeing is
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a really large amount of what are called the senior grenay, the fox sports in which part is very, very large. 2 phase and flash device which can be, you know, quite serious cups to be the quartz cut off of the crowd. very, very slowly start to dissipate as we're going into the really early hours the morning. of course, these prizes have been incredibly well organized. everybody's talking each other on social media and they wouldn't of anticipated, no doubt this particular movement when eventually the police would have had that way. and so, as you say, crowd start to dissipates, and it will be interesting to see what the kind of the types go move is next from those who were inside didn't come from it. well, what we're seeing right now is lot of people moving from location to location where there are officers. i feel a lot of shouting what's on clear is sort of what the next steps to. i've heard
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protesters shout out and try to get other protesters to do various action. the various sort of ways of either stopping sleep or at the least making their lives that their job to get a bit more difficult that this morning. and i don't know if you heard of a previous guy see was a professor at u. c. o college in london. he was saying that at that this is a subset of students that does not represent the student body at large. is that something that you would agree with it's, it's kind of relatively a minority voice, but a very loud one. but one of the things i can say is, i haven't been able to think all of his body or really get a sense of how the student body deal. i certainly, if it is a minority, it's a very, very vocal one me, one of the things that really struck me every day that i've come to cover. the
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family is often times when you walk just a few 100 yards away on to other parts of the campus. you see what is essentially a normal college campus to see people reading. you see people going from the door to the library. you see people going to class today that was a little bit different days with the larger scale of law enforcement. he started to see a lot fewer people walking around. and in fact, there are some areas where it would pretty much be impossible to do any learning. so i'd appreciate that and thanks very much data for your analysis. and uh, you know, i, with this account from the same, let's bring it across. one of reynolds who joins us from seen as well a just a he being outside the incumbent for the whole evening as this is preceded. robin. no, i didn't. if you had the interview with shawn, but saying that the 400 to say that where and so i think happened is probably
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despite the guns or a few 1000, what do you say? what are you here of the yeah, that's right. standing at the form, what was formerly the perimeter of the can. these metal stage is used to be covered with wooden pallet piece of plywood board. now that's all been dismantled. as well as other structures by the police. the police are continuously pressuring the remaining students in the center of what was once there and camp. and natalie, moving in on them, constantly firing these uh, these compressors are dates of yeah, but i can hear now that the students actually the chantix something one of their solidarity chance about palestine. so they're not all finished.
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i've also seen a lot of people being arrested, of being led out of the encampment by police officers in zip ties. some of them are being sat down on the, on the grass, these 3 over there. they'll be taken to some corporate transport and take it to the police station. so let me just step out of the way so that i'm our expert cameraman, and key and stuff. yeah. or you can focus in on this last line of protesters behind this mass of police officers here they're still chanting 3, palestine and the ring is getting tighter. gradually the police are making more inroads,
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arresting more people. okay. at robot. anything of course can happen, but it looks is this at this point in time, it means that the police will successfully clear being commentary. but the question is, what happens next? well that's of course, that's an excellent question and nobody really knows the answer to what's gonna happen in the future. but we will have to see several things. one, what will be the public reaction to this? uh, will people be appalled by this use of police force against the student protesters? will people think oh, those protests are simply added something to them. they were a nuisance, and so the police did their jobs. the 2nd thing would be, what sort of a response will the campus community and it's faculty have
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a that's important for this place. you see a lay of the faculty members earlier. i think it was yesterday came out and said that they'd sign 200 people onto a kind of petition saying that they demanded that the university not discipline or . busy or suspend or expel any of the students. they had a whole list of demands, all of which have been shredded now. so the faculty left open the possibility of some labor action withholding their work perhaps. so we'll see how that happens . and then on the, on the very personal scale, what's going to happen with these students? are they going to return to protest once they're processed and released from jail? we should probably be very quickly,
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i think this is not going to be serious charges in most cases. and they have told me, yes they would, we'll do that is that we are going to continue protesting no matter what happens here at the in campus on this night. so we're going to continue the process. so let's see what form that process takes and whether at some point the university here, universities all across the country where the same thing has been happening. we'll figure out that it needs they need to. they feel that they need to have some sort of dialogue or will they continue to sort of suppress be sick? and i guess finally will this extremely highly publicized events with, you know, does.

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