UNITED NATIONS, Jul 26 (APP): United Nations human rights experts have expressed deep concern over a \u201cmassive crackdown\u201d on pro-Palestinian student protests at various universities in the United States, urging authorities to uphold the rights to free speech and peaceful assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe banning and attacks on student protests are a grave violation of the rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression guaranteed by international human rights law, and must stop immediately,\u201d the experts said in a a joint statement on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They added that their concerns were conveyed to the US Government in a previous communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Students across the US have organized anti-war encampments and peaceful protests to express solidarity with Palestinian civilians in Gaza suffering amidst the deadly Israeli military attacks since Oct 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The statement noted that many demonstrations were dispersed by law enforcement at the universities\u2019 requests, often resulting in violence that required medical attention for some protesters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reports indicate that students faced severe consequences, including arrests, potential deportation, expulsion, loss of housing, and excessive surveillance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UN Human Rights Council-appointed experts called on academic institutions to avoid punitive actions against students exercising their fundamental rights and to consider readmitting those expelled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The experts also addressed accusations from some US politicians and university officials that labelled the protests as antisemitic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is inaccurate and unjustified to bluntly label all peaceful demonstrations of solidarity with the Palestinian people or calls for a ceasefire in Gaza or criticism of Israel\u2019s policies as antisemitic,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe strongly denounce antisemitism as a serious form of racial hatred and intolerance and urge authorities to properly investigate and take effective measures against it in line with international human rights law,\u201d they stressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The experts included, among others, the special rapporteurs on the right to education, for cultural rights, and on freedom of opinion and expression.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 26 (APP): United Nations human rights experts have expressed deep concern over a \u201cmassive crackdown\u201d on pro-Palestinian student protests at various universities in the United States, urging authorities to uphold the rights to free speech and peaceful assembly. \u201cThe banning and attacks on student protests are a grave violation of the rights […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":8194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}