State Attorney Dana Nessel has announced felony and misdemeanor charges against eleven pro-Palestine protestors under pressure from the University of Michigan’s police department (UMPD) for participating in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. These charges bypass local Prosecutor Eli Savit in an effort to secure harsher criminal penalties following previous felony charges, ongoing academic disciplinary actions, and hiring bans. In collaboration with the State of Michigan, this represents the Regents concerted effort to weaponize the criminal justice system to stifle the pro-Palestine movement demanding divestment from aparthied and genocide.
The UMich Gaza Solidarity Encampment stood for 30 days on the Diag to demand divestment of the over $6 Billion of the university’s endowment invested in weapons manufacturers and war profiteers complicit in the genocide in Palestine, until it was violently raided in the morning of May 21, 2024. UMPD, armed with “Deep Freeze” (a combination of pepper spray and teargas, described as the “most intense, incapacitating agent available today”), body armor, and batons, assaulted and pepper sprayed protestors, hospitalizing at least three people and violently arresting four protestors now facing felony and misdemeanor charges from Nessel’s office.
Police violence to suppress dissent has become routine at Michigan. Recently, police charged at protesters participating in a “Die In” demonstration on the University of Michigan Diag and tackled individuals to the ground, arresting four, including a minor. Given Attorney General Dana Nessel’s attack of Detroit congresswoman Rashida Tlaib for criticizing the Biden administration funding of the genocide in Gaza, these unconstitutional charges are an indication of the political and racialized targeting of the pro Palestine divestment movement. In conjunction with AG Nessel’s recent failure to deliver justice for the victims of the Flint Water crisis, this unfounded attack is a clear demonstration of the remarkable ineptitude of the attorney general office, and the criminal justice system as a whole.
We call on Attorney General Dana Nessel to drop the politicized charges immediately. We demand that U-M President Santa Ono and the Board of Regents end their campaign of violence and intimidation against students, University workers, and community members. We refuse to cower to carceral intimidation and will remain resolute in our commitment to the struggle for Palestinian liberation, demanding divestment from weapons manufacturers and surveillance technology to end the University’s complicity in genocide.
A press conference will be announced in coming days.
Donate to the fundraiser for our comrades here: https://chuffed.org/project/um-palestine-legalfund.