Charges dropped against pro-Palestinian protestors from Art Institute of Chicago encampment

Charges have been dropped against 80 protestors who took part in a solidarity encampment for Palestine at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).

They were arrested in May for criminal trespassing amid international student protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza, which the local health ministry says has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians since 7 October, when Hamas launched an attack on Israel that killed 1,189 Israelis, according to an AFP tally based on the official figures, and resulted in around 240 being taken hostage.

SAIC said in May that students who took part in the protests would not face any academic sanctions, and that the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) museum would not pursue trespassing charges. The Illinois attorney’s office said they dropped their charges because of their peaceful protest policy, according to ABC7 Chicago.

“None of us showed up to be arrested. I didn’t show up to be arrested,” the protester Jeffery Sun told the local news station. “We’re trying everything we can because of the ongoing genocide in Palestine.”

Students from SAIC and Columbia College Chicago, another local university, set up an encampment in the Art Institute’s North Garden and renamed it “Hind’s Garden”. This was in honour of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed, along with her family and two paramedics trying to rescue her, after apparently coming under fire by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.

According to a statement posted to social media, the protestors’ goals were to “stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people” and to demand that SAIC and AIC divest from entities “profiting off of the occupation and genocide in Palestine”, starting with cutting ties with the Crown family, Chicago billionaires who according to Forbes own 10% of General Dynamics. General Dynamics is one of the world’s largest arms dealers and supplies weapons used by the Israeli military. The Crown family has donated millions to the SAIC.

Protestors who had their charges dropped this week told ABC7 Chicago they have a protest scheduled for Thursday, 4 July at Millennium Park, where access to Anish Kapoor’s sculpture Cloud Gate (2006) —better known as “The Bean”— reopened to the public last week after nearly a year.