Trinity Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (Trinity BDS) are currently staging an occupation of Regent House calling on College to cut ties with Israel.
A group of students entered the building at 6pm this evening.
Security are currently in the building attempting to end the occupation. At 6.10pm security made their way up the stairs.
Trinity News journalists were prevented from going up the stairs by security.
At 6:21pm security could be heard asking people to leave the building saying: “You’re not allowed to stay here.”
At 6:31pm a representative for the Junior Dean arrived and spoke to Trinity College Dublin Students Union President László Molnárfi through the locked door.
Molnárfi made a statement on the steps of Regent House before leading the protestors up the stairs.
He said: “We, students, are disgusted by our College’s complicity in genocide and indiscriminate killing of men, women and children in Gaza perpetuated by the settler-colonial regime of Israel.”
“We condemn the ties to Weizmann Institute of Science, to Tel Aviv University, to Technion University, directly involved with the war industry, the IDF, the propaganda of Israel… the technology produced in these places when put into practice are the bombs and the weapons and the tanks that are used to brutalize the Palestinian population and enforce occupation.”
He declared “an occupation of indefinite duration and the creation of an autonomous zone in Regent’s House” and called on Trinity to “adopt BDS principles”. They are demanding that Trinity “cut ties with Israel and make a public statement denouncing Israel’s genocidal actions”.
“We need to take drastic actions because they are cowards, taking action when it is popular to do so but not being principled when it is against the mainstream.”
He then read out a statement made by Trinity’s Global Incident Response Unit on their website: “Many people in our College community are affected by global events, for example the war in Ukraine, human-caused and natural disasters and, most recently, the Hamas attacks and hostage-taking in Israel and the impact of the military response by Israel on the Palestinian population.’
Molnárfi continued: “When it came to Ukraine, they cut ties, they denounce Russia, rightly so, they lit front entrance in Ukrainian colors; yet when it comes to Palestine we hear nothing, complete silence, and one sentence on a website calling a genocide a military response.’
He concluded by stating they intend to “disrupt and hold this space, alongside organising teach-ins and other activities, in order to pressure Trinity into taking immediate action”.
The representative of the Junior Dean declined to comment on the occupation.
