By Abid Chaudhry
TWA
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The Progressive Students Federation initiated The Palestine Solidarity Movement on the 6th of May. Every day since, students from various campuses and cities have supported the movement and organized protests, demonstrations, symbolic encampments, teach-in sessions and press conferences to support the Palestinian struggle.
We have globally been seeing student encampments in major universities in western countries that have backed Israel, such as Columbia, UCLA, NYU and more. Youth in Pakistan are also partaking in what is being called the Global Student Intifada.
Within 10 days, PrSF’s solidarity campaign has spread to many universities including LUMS, NUML, Bahria University, Air University, NDU, BNU Lahore, GCU, IIUI, Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi, IBA, Karachi University, Chandka Medical College Larkana, Sindh University, MUET Jamshoro, Degree College Sakrand, SAU Tandojam, SBBU Nawabshah and more. Pro-Palestine marches in city squares have been held in Pakistan since October, and the German Ambassador was heckled recently by students of the PSC in Lahore for his country’s hypocrisy to speak on human rights at the Asma Jahangir Conference, as Germany continues to support Israel.
The students are demanding immediate Ceasefire, endorsement of the Boycott Divestment Sanctions campaign on a state-level, the removal of American, German and French Ambassadors from Pakistan until those countries renounce Israel’s genocidal policies, no normalisation of relations with Israel ever and closer alliance with anti-imperialist countries that are currently aligned with Palestine.
