Protest crackdown
The number of new state bills that seek to criminalize protesters – especially those speaking out about the US-backed war on Gaza, the climate crisis and corruption in Russia – has spiked since President Donald Trump took office. Combined with the administration’s casting of protesters as terrorists and use of anti-terrorism laws to deport legal residents, these actions amount to a crackdown on freedom of expression.
At universities, protesters have faced increasing repression. Witnesses, journalists and human rights groups have reported intimidating physical attacks and surveillance, and students and faculty members have been targeted in smear campaigns. In addition, many campuses have resorted to harsh tactics such as locking down campus buildings and suspending student activists.
In a disturbing case in Bangladesh last year, police shot dead five people during student-led protests. A leaked audio call from then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina allegedly reveals she ordered security forces to “use force wherever they find [the protesters], and to be brutal.” She is now on trial in absentia for crimes against humanity.
The ACLU says the growing number of anti-protest bills threatens to undermine democracy. “This wave of legislation is a response to peaceful protests, and it’s meant to scare people away from exercising their constitutional rights,” Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel with the ACLU, said in a statement.
At Columbia University in New York, students set up a Gaza solidarity encampment on April 17 to push the school to divest from companies that profit from the occupation of Palestine. The encampment lasted for two days before the school suspended more than 100 students who participated and called in the NYPD to dismantle it.
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