We support the EUR student protest!

Today, this Thursday, the Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) campus is dead quiet. What is normally a busy and lively place is closed all day today. Why? For fear

Fear of the Rotterdam triangle - the collaboration between the mayor, police and the public prosecutor. Indeed, following previous protests at universities, a demonstration had been announced for Palestine. This was supposed to take place at 13:00 at the EUR, but was moved to Rotterdam Centraal due to the emptying of the campus. Logical, because demonstrating on an empty campus is demonstrating according to the rules of the game of power.

The protesters' demands? That the EUR disclose its ties to Israeli institutions, then boycott those institutions and stop investing in companies that profit from the genocide in Gaza.

Back to that fear. What is the triangle so afraid of? That things will get out of hand? Could be. It happened in Amsterdam too. The media is currently full of images of damage at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). What the media on the other hand forgets to tell you is that the UvA - and also the University of Utrecht - deployed the ME on its students. And the ME sold hefty blows, even though it was completely unnecessary. Still weird, that you hear the media about damage to stuff, but not about excessive police violence. Because if you ask us, surely damage to people is a lot worse than damage to things.

And building on that: right now, Israel is invading the city of Rafah, where 1.5 million people are trapped. After some 40,000 people have been killed, Rutte has forgotten that Rafah was the so-called ‘red line’. Yet the outrage in the media is mainly focused on some material damage at the UvA and not on these bizarre human rights violations. Once again, human lives are placed under damage to property.

So yes, students at EUR and across the country are justified in raising their voices and demonstrating against ties to a genocidal state.

What is not justified? Beating demonstrating students to the ground on behalf of a university that defends genocidal links. So let's also keep our eyes peeled on how the ME - as Amnesty has also claimed - actually escalates and thus abuses their position of power and hope that this will not happen in Rotterdam.

So, we stand with the protesting students of EUR and regret that the triangle and the EUR Executive Board closed the campus for the day, which would have isolated the protest. And that because of fear of some stuff, while we are talking about human lives here....