The demonstration started off quietly at eleven o’clock, in the sunshine, in front of the UM administration building on the Minderbroedersberg. There’s poetry, and a minute’s silence for the victims of “ethnic cleansing in Gaza”. Then the chanting starts, including the controversial From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
When one protester outside the Faculty of Law on Bouillonstraat – protestors are not allowed into the university buildings – says that this slogan was not so well received by everybody at the last demonstration, the group chants it again. She is presumably referencing Dean Jan Smits who, earlier this year, said that the slogan “crossed a line”.
Aside from Smits, UM President Rianne Letschert and Margriet Schreuders, director of the Student Service Centre, are also personally called out. “You can’t hide, we charge you with genocide”, respectively "You're supporting genocide", is the message. The protesters haven’t called people out so personally before in public.