MADRID, 10 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Spanish students are already camping in ten universities in eight autonomous communities to support the Palestinian people and demand an end to the war in the Gaza Strip.
University students are camping out in protest against Israel’s attacks on Gaza at universities in the Community of Madrid, the Valencian Community, Galicia, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Andalusia, Aragon and Navarra.
So far, they have mobilized in Ciudad Universitaria at the Complutense University of Madrid; at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Valencia; on the Elviña Campus of the University of La Coruña; on the three campuses of the University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea; in the Historical Building of the University of Barcelona; at the University of Granada; on the Fuentenueva campus of the University of Zaragoza; on the campus of San Francisco Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, where the camping begins this Friday; at the Faculty of History of the University of Alicante; and at the Public University of Navarra, where the camping trip is scheduled to end today.
In this context, the Coordinator of Student Representatives of Public Universities (CREUP) urges the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, “to take action to improve the situation of Palestinian university students and to put an end to any type of collaboration with Israel, particularly in the Spanish University System”.
However, he has defended the position of the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE), which undertook to review and, where appropriate, suspend collaboration agreements with Israeli universities and research centers that “have not expressed a firm commitment with peace and compliance with international humanitarian law.
“We have been able to learn about the actions that the CRUE is going to carry out in this regard thanks to the student protests and their insistence on the need to undertake activism from the university system for the cause,” says the student organization, which celebrates all the actions that the rectors have taken and assures that it will accompany the fulfillment of these commitments that Spanish universities have taken.
The students explain that “the constant attacks against the Palestinian people do not stop and have escalated to such an extent that the protests have reached the universities.”
The student association, which brings together the Student Councils of public universities, defends the actions of students in defending the rights of the Palestinian people.
These protests that began recently in universities in the United States have spread to Spanish universities. The first protest took place on Monday, April 29 at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Valencia, organized by BDS País Valencià and Students for Palestine, where the reception has been quite notable.
It is not the first time that actions have been carried out by Spanish students in favor of Palestine. The Student Council of the University of Extremadura held a minute of silence for the victims of the conflict on October 31, 2023, and several students from the Public University of Navarra joined a platform in support of Palestine on November 6, that same year, calling for a partial academic strike at his university and asking to “stop the massacre in Gaza.”
On May 3, Germán Gutierrez, vice president of Institutional Relations of the CREUP, announced to other media that Student Councils or student groups could join these protests throughout these days, as has finally happened this week.
The student organization has assured that “there are few” university campuses where a camp or protest in favor of Palestine has not been scheduled.
From the CREUP they support all the protests in favor of Palestine that the students have carried out in the different universities of the territory.
