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LSU students protest for ceasefire in Gaza, ask for school's support
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BATON ROUGE - Around 100 LSU students voiced their solidarity with the Palestinian people in Free Speech Alley Thursday afternoon.
"I'm here today to speak for the 2 million people stuck in Gaza who don't have a voice to speak for themselves. I'm here to spread awareness that history did not start on oct 7. This is 75 years in the making," said senior Mira Badawi.
The protest put together by the student organizations 'We the People' and Social Justice for Palestine, aimed to advocate for de-escalation and ceasefire in Gaza.
Students say they wanted to show their solidarity sooner, but claim they ran into some road blocks with the university.
"It can be very discouraging to speak out about something like this on a campus that is pro-Israel, and they do make strong efforts to a form of censorship to the students, so it is very discouraging," said senior Minna Ismail.
Social Justice for Palestine member Taufiq Khaled says a few weeks back, LSU would not allow the group to bring in a particular speaker.
"As a representative of the Social Justice for Palestine organization on campus, I contacted a journalist and an author that is from Israel, who is Arab-born and now lives in the US. He was more than willing to come to LSU, he just needed a formal letter of invitation. When I tried to get that letter, I was told blatantly 'no' by admin," said Khaled.
Following the protest, the group sent a list of demands including for LSU to support Palestinian students through a public statement.
The university has not come out in support of either Israel or the Palestinian people, and representatives told me they are looking into the students' claims.
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