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U. graduate students organize a protest in solidarity with India's JNU

Some University Graduate students organized a protest on Friday in solidarity with India’s Jawaharlal Nehru University where Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of the school’s Students' Union, was arrested by the police under charges of sedition.

The protesters gathered in front of Firestone Library at 2 p.m. with posters that read "We Stand With JNU.”

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According to theNew York Times, Kumar’s arrest took place after a demonstration dedicated to remembering the 2013 execution of a Kashmiri man by the name of Azfal Guru, who was convicted of involvement in a terrorist attack against the India’s parliament in 2001.The arrest was made after astudent group, associated with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, filed a police complaint that reported instances of anti-Indian slogans during the demonstration, Aljazeerareported.

Nikhil Menon GS, a doctoral candidate in the department of History andone of the primary event organizers,explained that people have come to protest against this action because in India, the freedom of expression can only be curtailed by reasonable restrictions.

He said that in the case of JNU there was no just cause for the repressive powers of the state. According to Menon, these sedition charges had been slapped onto the student without threat of violence.

The demonstrations were peaceful, and there was no proof that the student arrested, Kumar, had actually been raising incendiary slogans, he added.

Ritwik BhattacharyaGS, a doctoral candidate in the comparative literature department, said that unlike the case of JNU, the University campus police maintains a shield between outside interference and the University. He added that the protest is not so much about the general politics of the incident as much as it is a call to look at the relationship of the nation state and university communities.

“What is happening currently in JNU is that you have this intervention from outside, which is uncontrolled. The administration of the university has decided to allow the state to do whatever it wishes to the students,” he said.

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“As much as we find [certain] statements unpleasant, derogatory and insulting, that does not by the slightest means justify police presence on campus and arresting students,” Menon said.

He said thathe didn't personally agree with the slogans and thought they were distasteful.

“But that’s the thing–in a democracy you can have slogans that are distasteful; this is not seditious," he added.

Menon explained that this protest mimicked thousands of others like it across India, North America and areas of Europe that have stood in solidarity with JNU. He noted that 5,000 to 8,000 students and teachers from around the country were part of the protests that were held through the center of Delhi, India on Thursday.

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Deborah Schlein GS, a doctoral candidate inthe department of Near Eastern Studies and one of the coordinators of the graduate South Asia Conference, said that she decided to participate in the protests because it’s important for University students to support their peers who were wrongfully accused.

“It’s part of a general set of experiences that people in politics are committed to, in that sense it’s important for people in universities in North America, especially Princeton, that recently had its own set of protests,” she added.

Niharika Yadav GS, doctoral candidate in the history department,explained that the situation in JNU should have been mitigated by the administration of JNU.

“The university should categorically condemn this and ask the Delhi police remove their presence on campus. They should absolutely not allow the police to be parading around the campus as if these people are terrorists; these are students,” she said.