With the main chant being “UGent you can’t hide, you’re supporting genocide” and “What do we want? Ceasefire – When do we want it? Now” calling for an academic Boycott, almost 200 students and university staff marched once again through the streets of Gent on the 12th of March 2024.
By Dimitris Karyamis
UGent has ties with many universities, one of them being the University of Tel-Aviv. The University of Tel-Aviv has an active role in the Palestinian Genocide by having engineering students co-developing weapon systems from Elbit, and this is one of many occurrences where the university is involved in such actions. The protest demanded that UGent be more transparent about its academic ties with such universities, and publish which projects exist and which collaborations remain with these institutions.
The march was co-organized by Comac, which is the student youth wing of the Belgian Marxist political party, the Workers’ Party of Belgium (WPB), (known as PTB-PVDA in Belgium), and by the Ghent coalition for Palestine.
The march started at 12:30 in Blandijn, it marched until the rector’s office of UGent, the people arrived at around 14:00. Outside the office there were three speeches held with a representative from each Organization. After the speeches, some representatives of the organizations went into the office and handed a petition that more than 2000 people signed in the last 4 weeks, with the request of an academic boycott of Israeli universities.
The protest was peaceful and went smoothly without any conflicts with police or anyone else.
