The University of Massachusetts Amherst Police Department has withdrawn its attempt to charge two pro-Palestine activists on campus with felony riot charges and other offenses.
Last Thursday, The Shoestring reported that university police were seeking “inciting to riot” charges against the two co-presidents of the university’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, Rüya Hazeyen and Maysoun Batley, over their involvement in a pro-Palestine encampment on campus on May 7. Police carried out one of the largest Palestine-encampment crackdowns in the country that night, arresting 134 people, though not Hazeyen or Batley. Instead, police sought to bring those felony charges against the two activists after the fact, as well as a charge of assault and battery on a police officer against Batley, alleging that she spit on a police officer.
“I can confirm that, upon further review, UMPD has withdrawn the application for complaint for all charges against these two individuals,” UMass spokesperson Samuel Masinter said in a statement.
The Shoestring’s reporting prompted a statement Monday from the university’s Professional Staff Union condemning the “crackdown on free speech” on campus and accusing Chancellor Javier Reyes’ administration of “trending towards authoritarianism.” The union accused Reyes of a “disregard for UMass’s long tradition of democratic government” in his creation of a new Campus Demonstration Policy Task Force that “deliberately excludes union representation.” That body, the union said, will craft policies impacting workplace safety and free-speech rights of its members.
“We stand firmly for the rights of all students, staff, faculty, and community members to engage in peaceful protest at our public university,” Andrew Gorry, the union’s co-chair, said in a statement. “We celebrate the right to free speech and are committed to defending that right—which ought to be able to be exercised without fear of retribution.”
The university, for its part, has maintained that it called the police on protesters because they had violated the school’s land-use policy by erecting their encampment on campus. UMass officials have said that no one was arrested for protesting but instead for refusing multiple orders to disperse.
The announcement that the university is no longer seeking any charges also came as faculty began rallying supporters to show up at the courthouse on the day of the hearing.
Hazeyen and Batley faced up to two and a half years in jail if they had been convicted of the riot charges. The students were set to have a hearing before the Eastern Hampshire District Court’s clerk magistrate later this week — a process The Boston Globe has likened to a “secret court.” But on Tuesday, the university confirmed to The Shoestring that the hearing has been canceled.
“It is welcome news,” Hazeyen and Batley’s lawyer, Jack Godleski, told The Shoestring. “It’s a shame Maysoun and Ruya had to go through this experience, but it’s better that UMass came around rather than never.”
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