On Nov. 25, Truthout documented the draconian charges filed against four students faced with a Class Four felony “mob action” charge for carrying out peaceful protests last April at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus (UIUC). The four, one of whom is Palestinian, participated in building the “Popular University for Gaza” on campus, and like protests on other campuses, made specific demands of the university regarding the U.S.-financed genocide in Gaza, urging the administration to do more to address Palestinian and Muslim affairs on campus, and to divest from all corporations and academic collaborations supporting Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
The student encampment and protests were entirely peaceful, and organizers attempted to engage university authorities in dialogue over months. Instead, the university responded by sending in large contingents of police officers from five counties in central Illinois, that surrounded the encampment and threatened to arrest students unless they disbanded it, which they finally did peacefully. No students were arrested or charged, but in the ensuing months, Champaign County State’s Attorney Julia Rietz, also a member of the UIUC’s Law School faculty, decided to make an example of the four, challenging their constitutional right to free speech and filing felony charges against them that carry a three-year jail term for “mob action.”
