Student group commemorates Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day at Columbia ‘Gaza solidarity encampment’

Yasmeen Altaji | April 28, 2024

An organization of students called Columbia Armenians for Palestine commemorated Armenians and Assyrians on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day at the “Gaza solidarity encampment”, where protesters are demanding the university divest from and boycott companies affiliated with arms sales to Israel.

Individuals held up Armenian, Artsakh and Assyrian flags. Members of the Assyrian, Armenian and Greek communities consider the 1915 Ottoman-led campaign that killed an estimated 1.2 million Assyrians, Armenians and Greeks genocide. Turkey has denied these claims.

Columbia University Armenians for Palestine could not be reached for comment.

“I want to center not only grief, but action and solidarity with each other,” an organizer for the commemoration said, according to a post from the group on social media. “I call on all Armenians to not only take a stand for Artsakh and other Armenian border villages threatened by Azeri neocolonialism, but also to take a stand for Palestine.”

Student protesters at Columbia University set up a “solidarity encampment” on the school’s main lawn April 17, the morning of university president Nemat “Minouche” Shafik’s appearance in front of a congressional committee for a hearing on antisemitism on US college campuses.

The following day, Shafik authorized police to enter campus, where they arrested more than 100 protesters.

Last week, Columbia’s student government passed a resolution to investigate the administration for its alleged violation of existing protocols in relation to the arrests.