CENSORED NEWS: Arizona Universities: Once known for sunshine and free spirit, now hallmarks of censorship and oppression

For a second time last night, the University of Tucson brought in police to attack students with rubber bullets and tear gas, after the encampment for Palestine was put up again on Thursday.

Before a mob of police attacked the Palestine camp at the University of Arizona this morning at 1 a.m., on Friday, May 10, faculty members formed a line and tried to protect them. Police fired tear gas on the media during the attack and cleared the camp for Palestine. Earlier, on May 1, the university brought in another mob of police that attacked the camp and tore it down, shooting students with tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets, and beating one student. Tucson police, Pima County Sheriff's deputies and Arizona law enforcement were responsible for the brutal attack.

The students voices have reached Palestine at the United Nations.

"Against all odds, we survived. Our flag flies high and proud in Palestine, and across the globe and on the campus of Columbia University." Choking back tears, he said, "It has become a symbol raised by all those who believe in freedom and in just rule, by all those who can no longer stand idly by in the face of such utter injustice. It is true that we will not disappear, but the lives lost cannot be restored."

-- Ambassador Dr. Riyad Mansour

https://twitter.com/Palestine_UN/status/1788949343858286627/photo/1

University of Arizona Partnering with Defense Contractos

What the mainstream media is not telling you: The University of Arizona in Tucson partners with Raytheon Missiles and other defense contractors, making it a partner in war crimes and genocide in Palestine. Raytheon Missiles, a top war profiteer, is housed at UA's Tech Park and develops weapons with students. The university's College of Engineering shows its partners, which includes the defense contractors. https://www.engr.arizona.edu/industry-partnerships#board

The University of Arizona in Tucson, which partners with Raytheon Missiles and other defense contractors, brought in police to attack students at the pro-Palestine encampment at 2 a.m., firing on them with rubber bullets, pepper balls and tear gas.

Arizona Universities: Once known for sunshine and free spirit, now hallmarks of censorship and oppression

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Updated May 10, 2024

Arizona's universities, once known for their sunshine and free spirit, are now hallmarks of censorship and oppression. The University of Arizona in Tucson, and Arizona State University in Tempe, are partnered with defense contractors, including Raytheon Missiles, a top war profiteer. The universities are smashing support for Palestine, and censoring voices opposed to war crimes and genocide.

While the defense contracts pour into Arizona State University, in Tempe, in the Phoenix Valley, ASU has suspended 20 students arrested, among more than 70 arrested, in a midnight police raid at the encampment in support of Palestine. The students oppose the war crimes and genocide that the United States government is funding and providing weapons for.

Arizona State University partners with Raytheon Missiles and also has new contracts for robotics and AI. Earlier, in 2020, ASU announced a five-year contract of over $42 million to design unmanned and robotics technologies and weapons systems for the Navy. Around the world, these unmanned killing robots are instruments of terror and death.

ASU brought in police in a midnight raid to arrest more than 70 persons at the encampment, and have now suspended 20 students, preventing them from completing the semester. Photo ASU by AzCentral.

In Tucson, University of Arizona officials are now exposed for stalking students supporting Palestine. University officials shared and stored students' social media posts, as they planned a pro-Palestine rally in November. The e-mails were revealed through a freedom of information request.

The University of Arizona called in law enforcement to smash the pro-Palestine camp on campus, police fired rubber bullets, pepper balls and gas at students on May 1. The university partners with weapons producers, including Raytheon Missiles, located at the university's Tech Park.

The University of Arizona also partners with Universal Avionics, owned by Israel's Elbit Systems. Elbit is the weapons provider to Israel which built the spy towers, integrated fixed towers, on the Tohono O'odham Nation. Those 11 spy towers now provide video surveillance to the crime-infested U.S. Border Patrol, allowing Border Patrol agents to stalk O'odham on their homeland.

Based in Israel, Elbit manufacturers weaponized drones and surveillance used on Palestinians. Its factories are protested around the world.

Ophelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham, said, "The corporate institutions occupying O'odham lands in Arizona called the University of Arizona and the Arizona State University have egregiously violated human rights laws, attacking human rights defenders opposed to the corrupt united states system of genocide."

"Defenders and indigenous first people of this Turtle Island will not be erased," said Ophelia, speaking in solidarity with the students. Ophelia is founder of O'odham Voice against the Wall, and has provided testimony on the militarization of her homelands at both the United Nations and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

In late October, after the genocide in Palestine was underway, the presidents of both the University of Arizona in Tucson and Arizona State University in Tempe led a coalition of universities to support Israel.

Students Against Apartheid at the University of Arizona in Tucson reiterated their demands on May 1, after being attacked with rubber bullets, pepper balls, and teargas by law enforcement from Tucson Police and Pima County Sheriff's Department.

The students demand that the university produce a divestment plan and commit to open door negotiations. The organization condemned the aggressive police response to their actions.

Students Against Apartheid demands the university divest from Israel and Raytheon Missiles and make a public statement condemning Israel’s actions in the war.

They also call for four faculty members in the College of Engineering to be dismissed.

The University of Arizona in Tucson's College of Engineering website shows its Advisory Groups are packed with defense contractors.

It says, "Industry partners serving on advisory working groups help guide the future of UA Engineering. These individuals provide input on programs and course curriculum and aid in ensuring that the college’s training and research address industry needs."

Raytheon, which is located at the university's Tech Park, is on the list of advisory groups. The list continues, with more defense contractors partnering with the university.

https://www.engr.arizona.edu/industry-partnerships#board

Raytheon Missiles also has a factory on the Navajo Nation. The Raytheon Dine' Facility produces missile parts at the site. It is located on the tribe's commercial farm, Navajo Agricultural Products Industry, NAPI, near Shiprock, New Mexico.

"Raytheon Diné stores and generates parts for 12 missile programs such as the Tomahawk cruise missile, Javelin weapon system, and Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile," Raytheon said.

Although the University of Arizona receives millions of dollars in grant funding for Native Americans, it has a long history of disrespecting Native American ceremonies and rights. In the 1990s, the University of Arizona and the Pope led the construction of telescopes on sacred Mount Graham and battled San Carlos Apaches in court in order to carry out the desecration.

Indigenous Action: Students Racially Profiled, Brutally Arrested in Flagstaff

Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona
Photo by Indigenous Action

Indigenous Action reports on the arrests at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff on the night of April 30, 2024:

Yesterday morning, a group of NAU students in occupied Kinłani took to the lawn outside the student union and joined the global struggle for a free Palestine. Many Indigenous students were present; sharing medicine, stories, songs, and dance as well as spreading the word on Indigenous issues happening in Kinłani itself such as the struggle against sacred site destructions, including showing support for Taydem James, a Diné high school student facing charges after being racially profiled and brutalized by FPD (Flagstaff Police Department.)

Despite harassment from Zionist counter-protestors, the camp remained determined to hold out, also despite calls from the university to disperse at 10 pm.
Like many stories we’ve all heard before, what started as a tame encampment led by self-appointed “marshals”, quickly turned brutal as riot police swept through campus, tackling, arresting, and even tasing students who refused to leave the encampment. Tear gas was also deployed and most of the self-appointed “leaders” were arrested.

This brutality only emboldened students as the numbers steadily grew from about a hundred to hundreds of people flooding the pedway, demanding the police leave. Chants of “Leave our campus!” and “Free free Palestine!” could be heard ringing off the mountain all over Kinłani.

In total, 26 were arrested and the organizers of the protest, NAU SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) have announced that the events of the night will not deter them.

Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona
Photo by Indigenous Action

Killer robots: A fired United Nations attorney speaks out

A human rights attorney at the United Nations, fired for making a personal tweet about genocide, said he's happy to be leaving Geneva, that the United Nations is a facade.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/12/20/united-nations-seeks-to-head-off-rise-of-killer-robots.html

Ousman Noor worked for an NGO which focused on halting killer robots, automated killing machines using AI, the automated killing machines that the Arizona State University has contracts for.

Noor, as he was leaving Geneva, said the conservative NGOs are so slow, and the NGOs at the U.N. are part of the whole do-nothing facade at the U.N. in Geneva.

Noor's comments mirror what many Native people who have testified at the UN Permanent Forum in New York, and in Geneva at CERD sessions tell Censored News: They say testifying at the U.N. is a waste of time, and the testimony goes nowhere, that there were no results from their efforts, and they wasted their time and money. Some Native people said they felt stalked by non-profits looking for the next big issue, the next big money-maker for their non-profit grants. Some said their words were plagiarized by profiteering college professors in books.

Ousman Noor wrote:

"It's my last day living in Geneva, Switzerland after nearly 5 years, I am leaving to Jordan tomorrow.

"Here is my parting message about the United Nations. It's basically a facade to give people an appearance that progress is happening, when it actually isn't. Real change comes from direct action and civil disobedience that disrupts that status quo, as we are seeing from students across campuses in America. If we don't resist we become complicit. Goodbye Switzerland, you are a beautiful country in other ways. Wish me luck for new adventures in Jordan."

In his video message, Noor says of the United Nations, "It seems like the whole place is a theater, where people act important." He says that he's just come to terms with how much bull sh-- there is. The genocide has made all of this clear.

Describing the rubber-stamping of existing systems, he says, "It's just become a machine where the status quo is perpetuated."

Listen to this video on Twitter/X at https://twitter.com/i/status/1786439630893547812

Trinity College Divests: Advised Individuals could be responsible for war crimes

Cambridge's Trinity College is divesting in Elbit Systems and other arms companies, after being advised that individuals could be held responsible for complicity with war crimes. "In response to this report, on 28 February the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), a UK-based rights group, issued a legal notice to Trinity College warning that its investments could make it potentially complicit in Israeli war crimes."

"The ICJP indicated in its legal notice that "officers, directors and shareholders at the college may be individually criminally liable if they maintain their investments in arms companies that are potentially complicit in Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity."

Elbit, based in Israel, provides drones, weapons and surveillance used on Palestinians, and constructed the spy towers on the Tohono O'odham Nation. Elbit has received another contract to upgrade the spy towers on the southern border.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/cambridges-wealthiest-college-divest-arms-companies

Read more:

Arizona State University's Defense Contracts

ASU News in Tempe, Arizona: ASU receives three awards for research for critical national security

https://news.asu.edu/20240425-science-and-technology-asu-receives-3-awards-research-critical-national-security

ASU News: Raytheon opening engineering design hub at ASU's Skysong

https://news.asu.edu/20230728-arizona-impact-raytheon-opening-engineering-design-hub-asu-skysong

ASU's contract for unmanned robots and weapons

ASU News (2020) ASURE has been awarded a contract that could total as much as $42.4 million over the next five years to advance unmanned and robotic technologies and weapons systems.

The Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, awarded $12 million now to the Arizona State University-affiliated applied research lab to solve the initial task and is offering the opportunity for an additional $30.4 million for subsequent tasks.

https://news.asu.edu/20200731-asu-research-enterprise-awarded-contract-advance-unmanned-and-robotic-technologies

University of Arizona Stalked Students Planning Palestine Rally

By Sam Parker, University of Arizona Wildcat, Tucson

The student newspaper, Arizona Wildcat, reports on the email revealed by way of a freedom of information request:

"Aura Bogado, an investigative journalist, posted a series of now-viral TikToks and tweets on May 2 discussing this email chain between leadership, including members of the University of Arizona Police Department and Interim Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Ronald Marx."

"A point Bogado focused on was the supposed surveillance of different social media accounts, including the Coalition of Black Students and Allies. An email in the records identified by Bogado shows a university official discussing the circulation of posts about the walkout, especially focusing on the COBA Instagram."

“Looks like it just got picked up by COBA on Instagram which means they are pretty involved. The only positive news for us right now is that their account has been shadow-banned by Instagram so the reach of their posts is really limited,” an email from a university official read.

Read the full article: By Sam Parker, University of Arizona Wildcat, Tucson

https://wildcat.arizona.edu/155322/uncategorized/n-student-org-monitoring/

The document: E-mails of University of Arizona officials stalking students

Complete document:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24634693-university-of-arizona-november-6-9-2023-emails

Raytheon Missiles at University of Arizona Tucson Tech Park: Arrests on November, 30, 2024

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2023/11/now-stop-genocide-raytheon-missiles.html

Censored by Indian Country Today -- Raytheon Dine' Facility: Making Missiles on the Navajo Nation

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2009/09/making-missiles-on-navajo-nations-farm.html

Violent Cops Attack Students Supporting Palestine Nationwide

Police attack on University of Virginia students in Richmond, during peaceful vigil for victims of genocide in Gaza. Saturday, May 4, 2024. (Cal Cary/The Daily Progress via AP)[ASSOCIATED .