On Tuesday night, someone smashed the ground-floor windows at the UB. Just like two weeks ago, pro-Palestinian slogans had been painted in red paint.
Almost half of all the windows on the ground floor were destroyed. The glass was shattered, but not actually broken, so nobody gained access to the UB.
The windows to the left of the main entrance of the UB were covered in red slogans, such as: ‘Day 68 20,000+ dead’, ‘Gaza’, and ‘We will escalate’. On the wall beneath the windows of the Starbucks, someone had written ‘Free Palestine’, accompanied by an anarchist sign.
Police report
The UG is alarmed. ‘We strongly condemn this violence,’ says UG spokesperson Elies Wempe-Kouwenhoven. ‘Vandalism truly crosses the line. We have filed a police report, and the windows are currently being cleaned.’ The UB is still open.
It’s unclear who the perpetrator or perpetrators are. However, there are cameras around the UB. The footage is being reviewed by the police.
Respect
The board of directors condemns the vandalization and would ask everyone to keep talking to each other, especially now, and respect each other’s circumstances and viewpoints.
Board president Jouke de Vries said: ‘We don’t see how destroying property and making threats remotely contribute to finding a solution for the conflict between Israel and Palestine. In fact, actions such as these only encourage polarisation and are squarely at odds with the university’s core values.’
In November, the UB was also targeted by pro-Palestine demonstrators. During that incident, the windows were covered with red paint and slogans such as ‘UG supports genocide’, ‘free Gaza’, and ‘free Palestine’.