LOS ANGELES, California — A gaggle of a couple of dozen activists bodily shoved this reporter out of the “Palestine Solidarity Encampment” on the campus of the University of California Los Angeles, a public college, on Friday.
Activists have encamped there since Thursday, once they arrange barricades fabricated from plywood and furnishings scraps, and pitched tents. About 100 pro-Palestinian activists gave the impression to be contained in the encampment as of Friday morning.
Breitbart News arrived to movie and {photograph} the encampment, which is now surrounded by metal railings. Several different information retailers have been current exterior the encampment, together with native TV information, the New York Times, and others.
Signs bearing quite a lot of slogans hung across the perimeter of the encampment, and inside it, together with “Queers for Palestine.” One banner learn: “LAPD, KKK, IOF THEY’RE ALL THE SAME.” (“IOF” is a pejorative time period for the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, which anti-Israel activists typically seek advice from because the “Israel Occupation Forces.”)
An anti-Israel and anti-police banner hangs on an unlawful barricade at UCLA known as the “Palestine Solidarity Encampment.” Westwood, Los Angeles, California, April 26, 2024 (Joel Pollak / Breitbart News)
The encampment was guarded at two entrances by activists sporting fluorescent jerseys and kaffiyehs or KN95 masks, which have been evidently distributed to forestall transmission of sicknesses, but additionally to cover activists’ identities.
Activists in jerseys, masks, and keffiyehs guard the doorway to the “Palestine Solidarity Encampment” at UCLA, Los Angeles, California, April 26, 2024 (Joel Pollak / Breitbart News)
As seen within the video filmed by Breitbart News, one of many guards initially allowed this journalist to enter, supplied a masks was worn and there have been no peanuts or bananas launched into the encampment (maybe as a consequence of allergic reactions).
Joel B. Pollak / Breitbart News
However, after a number of seconds, activists surrounded this journalist and tried to hinder filming. A gaggle of a couple of dozen of them linked arms and pushed this journalist a number of occasions towards the doorway, in full view of the media.
This journalist addressed the members of the media filming and photographing the assault:
Freedom for Palestine doesn’t imply freedom for Americans, evidently. These persons are violating the United States Constitution, in addition to the legal guidelines of the State of California, in addition to committing frequent assault. I’m a member of the media, and a member of the general public. I’ve each proper to be at a public college. This is the First Amendment. And all of you [journalists] needs to be in there, refusing to allow them to assault journalists. This is a violation of the First Amendment. They declare they stand for freedom in Palestine, however they’re violating probably the most fundamental freedoms of the United States Constitution. I’ve a proper as a member of the media — and, truly as a member of the general public — to movie what’s happening at a public college. Every single journalist needs to be in there, filming. You needs to be taking images. You ought to refuse to take lectures and to be pushed round by these undergraduates who clearly are confused about what it means to be a citizen of the United States.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ensures freedom of the press, which has its widest scope on public property. UCLA is a public college and the encampment is within the midst of probably the most public house at the college.
California additionally has sturdy press freedom legal guidelines, such protections for journalists reporting throughout civil disturbances.
Two folks stood close by, holding a banner that mentioned: “UCLA Faculty and Staff We Stand With Our Students.”
Two UCLA workers show in solidarity with college students at the “Palestine Solidarity Encampment” at UCLA. One informed Breitbart News that he was primarily there to cease college students from being arrested. Los Angeles, California, April 26, 2024 (Joel Pollak / Breitbart News)
Asked whether or not they supported college students bodily assaulting members of the media, they refused to state a place.
The UCLA encampment is one in all a number of which have been arrange in current days at universities, private and non-private, throughout the United States. Many have used explicitly pro-terror rhetoric, and a few have focused Jewish college students.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the creator of the brand new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He can also be the creator of the current e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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