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Police Violently Arrest University of Texas Students Protesting Genocide in Gaza
"After 205 days of genocide and almost 40,000 Palestinian martyrs, it is shameful that UT continues to invest in mass murder and resorts to brutal intimidation tactics to try to silence its own students," said one protester.
Apr 29, 2024
Around 40 peaceful pro-Palestine protesters were arrested Monday on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin as police once again violently cracked down on student-led demonstrations against their school and country's complicity in Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.
UT students and allies are calling for not only an end to the Gaza genocide but also a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel and the university's divestment from Israeli investments. Protesters chanted slogans including "We are being peaceful, you are being violent!", "There is no riot here, why are you wearing riot gear?", and "Let them go!" as state troopers aided by local and campus cops dragged, hauled, and even wheeled targeted individuals into custody.
"Our main goal is to get the University of Texas to divest."
Organizers said police used so-called "less-lethal" weapons including flash-bang grenades, mace, and "other chemical munitions" against protesters. National Lawyers' Guild volunteers attempted to collect information from arrestees and inform them of their rights.
"After 205 days of genocide and almost 40,000 Palestinian martyrs, it is shameful that UT continues to invest in mass murder and resorts to brutal intimidation tactics to try to silence its own students, who are bravely taking a stand against genocide," said Lenna Nasr of the Palestinian Youth Movement.
"We demand that UT divest from the Zionist state of Israel and from all institutions and companies that are enabling the current genocide in Gaza," Nasr added. "And, we demand the resignation of [UT president Jay] Hartzell for greenlighting the militarized repression of peaceful student protestors on their own campus."
Mustafa Yowell, a UT engineering student whose father is from Texas and mother is from the occupied West Bank, toldAl Jazeera: "Our main goal is to get the University of Texas to divest. Stop sending money to Israel and divest from companies that profit off of war like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. It has nothing to do with antisemitism, or Islam, or being Arab. It's about human rights, conflict, and oppression that people face."
Police commanders eventually ordered officers to retreat from the UT campus, sparking a tremendous cheer from demonstrators, who followed and tried to block a bus loaded with arrested protesters.
Arrested students have reported mistreatment in police custody, including incidents of Islamophobia. One young Muslim woman told Al Jazeera that she was denied period products and was forced to wear blood-soiled clothing.
Some students said they did not plan on protesting but felt compelled after witnessing how police treated the nonviolent demonstrators.
"We weren't planning on doing anything like this until we saw students' heads getting smashed into the ground up the road," Joseph Ely, a graduate student and president of the Palestine Solidarity Committee at Texas State University in San Marcos, about 30 miles southwest of Austin, toldKUT News. "It was really the police at the University of Texas that provoked us to do this."
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott weighed in on the arrests in a social media post declaring that "no encampments will be allowed."
In response, Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) accused Abbott of "escalating the situation at UT Austin and putting Texas students and journalists in danger."
Monday's arrests follow last week's violent raid on pro-Palestine protesters at UT, during which dozens of people were arrested and at least one journalist and professor were brutalized along with numerous student protesters. Monday's action also came amid a growing wave of nationwide campus demonstrations against the Gaza genocide and complicity by the U.S. government and universities.
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Tlaib Calls for DOJ Hate Crime Probe After Palestinian American Stabbed in Texas
"The constant dehumanization of Palestinians, Arab, and Muslim Americans has real, dangerous consequences," the Michigan Democrat warned.
Feb 06, 2024
Democratic Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib on Tuesday joined a leading Muslim advocacy group in urging the U.S. Department of Justice to open a hate crime investigation following the stabbing of a young Palestinian American man in Texas.
Zacharia Doar, 23, and three other Muslim American men were driving home from a Sunday evening demonstration against Israel's war on Gaza—which has killed, wounded, or left missing more than 100,000 Palestinians—when "a white male riding a bicycle, later identified as Bert James Baker, allegedly attempted to rip a flagpole with a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf reading 'Free Palestine' off of their car," according to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).
CAIR continued:
According to the victims, Baker repeatedly screamed the n-word and other obscenities, opened the passenger door, pulled one of the victims out of the car, and physically attacked him. The three others in the car say they then exited the car and fought off Baker. After Baker appeared to be subdued, he allegedly pulled out a knife and stabbed one of the young men in the chest, breaking one of his ribs.
The stabbing victim again subdued Baker, who was arrested after police arrived on the scene. The father of the stabbing victim reports that he has undergone a successful surgery and is recovering at the hospital.
The Austin Police Department said Tuesday that it believes the attack was "bias-motivated" and it would forward details of the incident to the city's Hate Crime Review Commission.
"A 23-year-old Palestinian American was stabbed last night in Texas—the latest hate crime against Palestinian Americans," Tlaib said on social media. "The constant dehumanization of Palestinians, Arab, and Muslim Americans has real, dangerous consequences. The Justice Department must investigate this as a hate crime."
U.S. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas)—whose district includes parts of Austin—also condemned the attack,
asserting on social media that "the recent rise in Islamophobia in this country is leading to deadly violence."
"We must condemn all anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim hate and violence," he added. "It should have no place in Austin or our country."
At a Tuesday press conference organized by CAIR, the stabbing victim's father, Nizar Doar, described his son as loving husband and dad of a 5-month-old baby and blamed U.S. President Joe Biden for the attack.
"Mr. Joe Biden, I blame you for what happened to me," he said. "If you would have called for a cease-fire three months ago, this would have never happened."
Doar implored Austin city leaders to educate themselves about Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza.
"We beg you to take action," he said. "Look at the human side of it, please. This is not just about Zacharia or me or our beloved brothers in Vermont or Michigan. It's about humanity everywhere in the world and humanity in Gaza. Please take action immediately and stop the genocide in Gaza."
"All I want is justice for my son and justice for our people in Gaza," Doar added.
In an earlier statement, CAIR-Austin board chair Fayyaz Shah said: "The entire Austin Muslim community stands in solidarity with these young members of our community, who appear to be the latest victims of a surge in anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate across our nation. We encourage law enforcement to file hate crime charges against the suspect and we also encourage federal law enforcement to open a hate crime probe."
CAIR national deputy director Edward Ahmed Mitchell contended that "this apparent act of hate in Austin appears to be the latest incident of hate motivated by the rise in anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia."
That bigotry, critics say, includes statements from politicians and the press including The Wall Street Journal, which this week published an opinion piece calling Dearborn, Michigan—where 4 in 10 residents are Arabs—"America's Jihad Capital."
"From the murder of six-year-old Wadea [al-Fayoume] outside Chicago to the shooting of three college students in Burlington, Vermont, far too many incidents of violence against Muslims, Palestinians, and others who support Palestinian human rights have occurred over the past several months," Mitchell said. "Those responsible for this violence must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and those fomenting the hate that leads to this violence must be condemned."
According to CAIR, the U.S. saw a 178% rise in Islamophobic incidents during the final three months of 2023 compared with a similar period the previous year. Advocacy groups have also reported a surge in antisemitism in the months since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel—although the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks such incidents, has come under fire for conflating opposition to the state of Israel's crimes of genocide, apartheid, occupation, settler colonization, and ethnic cleansing with antisemitism.
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Austin AFL-CIO Council Becomes Latest to Urge Biden to End Medicare Privatization Scheme
The labor council's newly passed resolution warns that the scheme "allows doctors and their offices to convert a patients' traditional Medicare choice into ACO-REACH coverage without first informing their patients."
Nov 21, 2022
The labor council of the Austin, Texas AFL-CIO has passed a resolution urging the Biden administration to terminate a Medicare privatization scheme that is quietly moving ahead despite vocal opposition from doctors, seniors, and progressive lawmakers.
The pilot program, which inserts private middlemen between patients and healthcare providers, was unveiled with little notice during the final months of the Trump administration despite internal concerns about its legality. The experiment has since been largely upheld by the Biden administration, which announced mostly cosmetic changes earlier this year, winning applause from industry groups that lobbied against complete elimination of the program.
"Immediately stop and dismantle the ACO-REACH program, and instead, immediately protect and preserve traditional Medicare.
Now known as ACO REACH, the pilot involves shifting traditional Medicare recipients onto privately run insurance plans without their knowledge or consent in the name of cutting costs and improving quality.
The resolution unanimously adopted by the Austin AFL-CIO Labor Council last week raises alarm over that aspect of the pilot, noting that "ACO-REACH allows doctors and their offices to convert a patients' traditional Medicare choice into ACO-REACH coverage without first informing their patients about the change nor getting their patients' written permission."
"Doctors and their offices will have a financial incentive to convert to ACO-REACH coverage as they will also be allowed to keep up to 40% of their revenue that they don't spend on healthcare services as overhead, resulting in a 'windfall profit' versus traditional Medicare programs that are only allowed to keep the balance of 2% of their revenue after paying for overhead," the resolution continues.
Under the ACO REACH model, which critics warn could fully supplant traditional Medicare if it is allowed to continue, private entities that are accepted as participants are paid by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and allowed to pocket a significant chunk of what they don't spend on healthcare. The newest version of the pilot, which was announced without congressional approval or oversight, is set to formally begin in January and will run at least through 2026.
The CMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), which is overseeing ACO REACH, is currently headed by Elizabeth Fowler, the former vice president of public policy and external affairs at WellPoint, Inc.--a health insurance firm that later became Anthem.
The Austin AFL-CIO Labor Council resolution implores the Biden administration to "immediately stop and dismantle the ACO-REACH program, and instead, immediately protect and preserve traditional Medicare plus adding coverage for hearing, vision, and dental care."
The labor council's resolution marks just the latest expression of outrage over the Biden administration's decision to build on a privatization ploy constructed by the Trump administration, which was replete with industry allies hostile to Medicare and other popular government programs.
In August, the AFL-CIO's Alameda, California labor council passed a resolution noting that it is "within the power of the Biden administration to end [ACO REACH] with the stroke of a pen"--and urging it to use that power. Similar resolutions have been approved in recent months by the Arizona Medical Association, the Seattle City Council, and the Texas State Democratic Executive Committee.
On top of opposition from hundreds of local and national advocacy organizations, lawmakers at the national level--including prominent progressives such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)--have raised concerns over the pilot, which could allow the private insurance giants that have profited hugely from Medicare Advantage to further entrench themselves in the Medicare program.
"We must immediately end Medicare privatization programs like ACO REACH," Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, tweeted in April. "There's no excuse for allowing the same Medicare Advantage organizations to now administer 'care' for traditional Medicare beneficiaries."
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