Dear Friends,
By now, word (and video) has probably reached many of you showing the violent repression by the police (whose presence was requested by UZH) towards a peaceful demonstration on the 17th May (last Friday).
Prior to the scheduled protest, police officers were stationed at entrances to: control student IDs, confiscate items deemed supportive of Palestine, and deny entrance to members of the public. Several students were even expelled/banned from Kreis 1, and two people were arrested on suspicion of planning to participate in the demonstration.
The student demonstrators therefore assembled on the public walkway in front of the UZH main entrance at 16:00. They then began their peaceful march towards the city centre, at which point the police began their shocking and as yet under-reported violent escalation. Police vans drove onto the pavement to ram protestors, pepper spray was indiscriminately used on the crowd by police officers driving past at speed, and even rubber bullets were fired. Luckily, there are no reports of severe injuries thus far, and the protestors were able to remain calm and not respond to the unwarranted attacks and provocations.
In a democratic (in fact, any) country, such brutal and repressive measures to peaceful protests are clearly unacceptable. The rights to assemble and demonstrate peacefully are universal, and must be protected at all times. In calling the police, who acted in an unjustifiable manner, UZH has also shown a complete dereliction in their duty of care towards their students, by unnecessarily putting them in harms way.
If we do not speak out when we witness such violations of civic rights, we tacitly approve of the measures implemented, and prepare the conditions for future erosion. ETHZ and UZH must be publically shamed for their reckless response and the threat they are posing to our civil liberties. Please contact your representative association(s) and the ETH central administration to exert pressure and stop our academic institutions from indulging in totalitarian tendencies.