Hundreds of demonstrators who followed a progressive Jewish activist group packed at the lowest level of Trump Tower on Thursday to protest the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and a former student at the University of Colombia.
President Trump has arrested the arrest as his administration was transferred to the deportation of Mr. Khalil, a permanent legal resident in the United States and was a prominent figure in the demonstrations supporting the Palestinians on the campus of Colombia.
The demonstrators held high -printed fabric signs with a red and black letter. One read, “Free Mahmoud Palestine Free.” They chanted, their words hesitant against coral marble tiling. “The Nazis fought, not students,” they repeated.
Later, ninety -eight demonstrators were arrested, according to John Chil, head of the police department.
Since the news of the arrest of Mr. Khalil on Saturday, the New York residents rose up To the streetsIn a march in the lower Manhattan and the gathering on the campus of Colombia. The advocates of freedom of expression and the rights groups of migrants questioned the legitimacy of Mr. Khalil, 30, who has a green card, born and brought up in Syria and is married to an American citizen. Lawyer Challenge his arrest in court.
Shortly before noon on Thursday, hundreds of people who were slowly flowing in Trump Square on the basement, wearing President Trump’s towering in the center of Manhattan, took off their coats and revealed bright red shirts saying “not in our name” on the forefront “and” Jewish Jews say arming Israel “on the back.
In 2015, Mr. Trump He launched his first winning presidential campaign From a lecturer in the same building, after the golden elevator descends in the hallway. One of the demonstrators, Josh Dubnaw, said the symbolism was intended.
“This elevator fell and immediately began in the demonstration of immigrants,” said Mr. Dubnaw, 59, a professor at Stone Brock University. “Thus this is a symbolic spot where we are here to say” no more. “We will not tolerate it.”
Security officers built music in the hallway and prevented more people from joining the group. After about 15 minutes, police officers who were watching from afar warned that the demonstrators who remained in the building would be arrested. Some began to broadcast slowly. Others stayed sitting and continued to cheer.
About an hour after the start of the protest, more than twenty officers began detention of the demonstrators, their hands behind their backs, raised them to their feet and carried them on the elevator.
Below, the demonstrators continued to cheer.
“We will not adhere to,” they said. “Mahmoud, we are next to you.”
One of the demonstrators, Jane Herscheman, 78, said she “feels power.” She is the descendant of the Holocaust survivors, and said that the arrest of Mr. Khalil reminded her of family stories since that time, when her grandfather and uncle were moved in the middle of the night.
“We have to stand, and in particular the Jews, to stand because they have made a weapon of anti -Semitism.”
Moments later, she was arrested.
Sonia Merceon-Nox, a Jewish voice spokeswoman for peace, said.
“Jews, we know our history,” she said. “We know what is happening when authoritarian systems begin to rotate and start getting rid of rights; we know exactly where to do so.”
