Students and staff walk out of class in support of Palestine and against police brutality

Approximately fifty EUR staff and students came out Monday at 11 am to participate in a ‘walk out’ in solidarity with students subjected to police brutality from the recent Gaza protests in Amsterdam and speak out against the university’s silent position on the genocide in Palestine.

People gathered in front of the Food Plaza with security guards being on standby. Two students, even though they came on campus ‘to work on their thesis’, participated in the walk out. Isabel Awad Cherit, an associate professor at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, spoke words of encouragement to the gathered crowd: “Let’s continue giving each other hope.”

The staff and students chanting ‘From the river to the sea’ and clapping against police brutality. Soon after, the crowd started marching towards other parts of the campus. A few students were carrying self-made banners with words such as ‘Cops off campus’, ‘They divested why won’t you’ and ‘Break the ties’.

Bystanders gathered around curiously and watched. One of them, a student watching at the Food Plaza said: “I saw it when I was in Polak and came to see what was happening.”

“This kind of walk outs are a way for university staff to cope with what is happening”, says Rogier van Reekum, assistant professor at Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

The walkout moved towards the rainbow path while people were shouting: “Cease fire now!” Unannounced visitors, such as a camera crew from Open Rotterdam, were asked to stop filming and leave the campus. Another unknown person with a camera was also asked to stop. “We don’t know who they are, and they might be the police disguised”, says one Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication staff. “We don’t want any of the students’ faces to be plastered as the face of the protest and bring them trouble.” After thirty minutes the crowd was dismissed.