MINNEAPOLIS– Police arrested an unknown number of pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Minnesota on Monday after a group of students briefly occupied an administrative building, protest organizers said.
The protest on Monday afternoon was the reason a warning from school officials: “Protesters entered Morrill Hall on the East Bank, causing property damage and restricting entrance and exit to the building,” the alert said. “If you are currently in Morrill Hall and can safely exit the building, please do so. Others are therefore advised to avoid this area until further notice.”
A university spokesman said he had no further updates. He did not immediately respond to a request to confirm the arrests. A woman who answered the phone for university police said she had no information to provide other than the earlier report.
Ryan Mattson, a media liaison with the university’s Students for a Democratic Society chapter, said some of the group’s protesters who were in the building had been arrested. He didn’t know how much.
Students were still protesting, “just trying to figure out where our people are,” he said from the stage.
Merlin Van Alstein, organizer of the group, said earlier that about 30 protesters occupied Morrill Hall, while a larger group gathered outside.
The group renamed the building ‘Halimy Hall’ in memory of 19-year-old Palestinian TikTok creator Medo Halimy, who died in August in an apparent Israeli airstrike. The Israeli military said it was not aware of the attack that killed Halimy.
The protesters were equipped with tents and supplies and said they planned to stay until their demands were met. They demanded that the university divestment of Israel and revoke the political neutrality treaty. A video posted online showed chairs stacked in front of an exterior door of the building, in an apparent barricade.
“We plan to stay until they remove us by force,” Van Alstein said before the arrests. “The people inside will not leave until they meet our demands or until they are forced to leave.”
The group previously shared a video on Facebook in which a speaker announced that its members were occupying the building but not preventing anyone from entering or leaving the building.
The speaker appeared in front of a large sign that read: ‘Money for education, not bombs & occupation.” Other campus protests in the US in response to the war between Israel and Hamas included the divestmentphone conversation.
The protests, including earlier this year on the campuses of the University of Minnesota, issues of freedom of expression were raised and anti-Semitism when students demanded that their universities stop doing business with Israel or companies they said supported the war in Gaza.
The university’s homecoming week started on Monday.
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Dura reported from Bismarck, North Dakota.
