The demonstrators return Mahmoud Khalil in Trump Tower: “fighting the Nazis, not students”
About 150 protesters belonging to a progressive Jewish activist group packed at the lowest level of Trump Tower on Thursday to protest the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and a former student at the University of Colombia.
President Trump has arrested the arrest as his administration was transferred to the deportation of Mr. Khalil, a permanent legal resident in the United States and was a prominent figure in the demonstrations supporting the Palestinians on the campus of Colombia.
The demonstrators held high -printed fabric signs with a red and black letter. One reading: “Free Mahmoud, Palestine is free.” They chanted, their words hesitant against coral marble tiling. “The Nazis fought, not students,” they repeated.
Later, ninety -eight demonstrators were arrested, according to John Chil, head of the police department.
Since the news of the arrest of Mr. Khalil on Saturday, the New York population has moved to the streets, where they walked in the lower Manhattan and gathering on the Colombia campus in Augown. The advocates of freedom of expression and the rights groups of migrants questioned the legitimacy of Mr. Khalil, 30, who has a green card, born and brought up in Syria and is married to an American citizen. His lawyer defies his arrest in court.
Shortly before noon on Thursday, hundreds of people who were slowly flowing in Trump’s Trump Square, whose tall Mr. Trump had in the center of Manhattan, took off their coats and revealed bright red shirts saying “not in our name” on the forefront “and” the Jews say they armed Israel “on the back.
In 2015, Mr. Trump launched his first winning presidential campaign from one of the lecturers in the same building, after descending on the golden elevator in the hallway. One of the demonstrators, Josh Dubnaw, said the symbolism was intended.
“This elevator fell and immediately began in the demonstration of immigrants,” said Mr. Dubnaw, 59, a professor at Stone Brock University. “Thus this is a symbolic spot where we are here to say” no more. “We will not tolerate it.”
Security officers built music in the hallway and prevented more people from joining the group. After about 15 minutes, police officers who were watching from afar warned that the demonstrators who remained in the building would be arrested. Some began to broadcast slowly. Others stayed sitting and continued to cheer.
About an hour after the start of the protest, more than twenty officers began detention of the demonstrators, their hands behind their backs, raised them to their feet and carried them on the elevator.
Below, the demonstrators continued to cheer.
“We will not adhere to,” they said. “Mahmoud, we are next to you.”
White House officials justified the arrest of Mr. Khalil This indicates that by organizing protests on the Colombia campus“He led the activities aligned to Hamas.” Officials did not accuse Mr. Khalil of any contact with Hamas, taking the guidance from him or providing material support for him.
His detention is an escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to abandon the protests, which officials described as anti -Semitism and a threat to the safety of Jewish students.
The demonstrators in the Trump tower, who were Jews, retreated to this idea.
One of them, Jin Hirchmann, 78, said she believed that the Jews have a special commitment to express their opposition to the Trump administration because she was “weapons anti -Semitism.”
Ms. Herscheman, the descendant of the Holocaust survivors, said that the arrest of Mr. Khalil reminded her of family stories from “that terrible time”, when her grandfather and uncle were moved in the middle of the night.
“I know, personally from the history of my family, I know what fascism is, I know what genocide is, and I know what a kidnapping is.”
Moments later, she was arrested.
James Chamous, a Colombia professor who participated in the protest while he was a Jew, said he believed the idea that the campus was “wounds of anti -Semitic intolerance” is ridiculous.
He said: “We all know that if there is anything, Colombia is a focus for students who raise their voice and conscience, and in a protest against the inhuman policies imposed by this system.”
Sonia Merceon-Nox, a Jewish voice spokeswoman for peace, said.
“Jews, we know our history,” she said. “We know what is happening when authoritarian systems begin to rotate and start getting rid of rights; we know exactly where to do so.”