Thursday, May 23
Students occupy Humboldt University to establish “Jabalia Institute”
On Wednesday evening, around 50 students established an occupation of the Institute for Social Sciences at Humboldt University (HU), with another 300 supporters gathering outside to demonstrate in support of their actions. So far, the university has tolerated the protest, and they are set to hold a two-hour discussion with the student groups on Thursday afternoon.
This action is the latest in a series of protests which have been taking place in Berlin since the outbreak of Israel’s war on Gaza, but it may mark a slight turning of the tide in terms of the approach of Berlin institutions. The violent clearing of the attempted occupation of the Freie Universität (FU) campus on May 7 was heavily criticised from many within higher education, with academics signing an open letter in favour of the students’ right to freedom of assembly. Legal scholars have since commented that the clearing of the FU protest may itself have been illegal.
The HU students meanwhile have symbolically renamed the Institute for Social Sciences as the Jabalia Institute, assuming the name of one of the largest refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. They also raised barricades, spray painted walls with slogans of solidarity and distributed leaflets from the windows out onto the street of Universitätsstraße.
