Los Angeles, March 21 (RHC)-- Over 30 University of California/Los Angeles (UCLA) students who were brutalized last spring during Gaza solidarity protests have sued campus officials and law enforcement agencies. 

Students had set up a peaceful campus encampment demanding an end to UCLA’s financial ties with Israel’s war.  But they were repeatedly targeted for abuse, including from outside groups, culminating in what they call a “brutal mob assault” on April 30th. 

The live-streamed attacks on students and faculty were carried out for at least four hours while UCLA security stood by.  The university called in police the following day to forcefully and violently remove the protesters. 

The plaintiffs describe enduring physical and psychological harm.  One protester, Binyamin Moryosef, an Israeli American undergraduate plaintiff, talked with reporters.  He has accused UCLA of antisemitism over its silencing of Jewish anti-genocide voices on campus.

Binyamin Moryosef: “This lawsuit asks for the barest of respect towards the right to free expression, the right to voice our righteous opposition to the ever-present reality of imminent death every Palestinian child faces so long as the Israeli military continues its aggression.  I ask the university not to collaborate with the oppressive forces of our time, unless they wish to be remembered like the heartless administration that arrested the Vietnam War protesters.  Choose now to stand on the side of justice.”

[ SOURCE: DEMOCRACY NOW ]