Free Gaza, free speech and the showdown at Columbia University

For the past week, Columbia University has emerged as one of the latest epicenters of the global struggle to save Gaza from the Axis of Genocide. Israel with full economic, diplomatic and military support of the United States and other Western colonial powers, has been starving, dehydrating and carpet-bombing Gaza for 200 days now.

Inspired by the pain that every free-thinking human being feels at the sight of emaciated and burnt children and families, Columbia students took on big personal risk when taking a stand and building a Gaza Solidarity Encampment in the centre of campus last week.

Their goal: to get the university to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

After Columbia's president disbanded the protests by calling the police, another encampment has already popped up on campus. In addition to divestment, demonstrations are now calling for the removal of police presence and the reversal of disciplinary action taken against protesters involved in the first encampment.