(MENAFN- The Peninsula) AFP
Washington, USA: The White House insisted Sunday that pro-Palestinian protests that have rocked US universities in recent weeks must remain peaceful, after police arrested around 275 people on four separate campuses over the weekend.
"We certainly respect the right of peaceful protests," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told ABC's "This Week."
The wave of demonstrations began at Columbia University in New York but they have since spread rapidly across the country.
While peace has prevailed in many campuses, the number of protesters detained -- at times by police in riot gear using chemical irritants and tasers -- is rising fast.
They include 100 at Northeastern University in Boston, 80 at Washington University in St Louis, 72 at Arizona State University and 23 at Indiana University.
Among those arrested at Washington University was Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who faulted police for aggressive tactics she said provoked the sort of trouble they are meant to quell.
"This is about freedom of speech... on a very critical issue," she told CNN shortly before her arrest Saturday. "And there they are, sending in the riot police and basically creating a riot."
Protesters at Yale University established a new encampment on Sunday, the school's independent student newspaper reported, after a previous site was taken down by police days earlier, when dozens were arrested and charged with trespassing.
With final exams coming in the next few weeks, some campuses -- including the Humboldt campus of California State Polytechnic University, have closed and instructed students to complete their classes online.
The activists behind the campus protests -- not all of them students -- are calling for a ceasefire, and want colleges to sever ties with Israel.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,454 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to Gaza health ministry.
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