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'Oh no, there's no prayers today'
The protest crackdown at 'multicultural' WSU
Alex McKinnon
October 15, 2024
On Wednesday, two Western Sydney University students were arrested at the uni’s Parramatta South campus after beginning a sit-in outside WSU Chancellor Jennifer Westacott’s office.
Sit-in participants demanded that WSU cut financial ties with weapons companies like Leonardo S.p.A. and Rolls-Royce that have been supplying arms to Israel.
The arrested students were taken to Gladesville police station and were released after about seven hours. Both were charged with assault, and one was charged with resisting arrest. As a condition of their bail, they have been banned from campus unless they are attending class and from contacting members of the WSU 4 Palestine Collective, the protest organisers — including staff members who may be their teachers.
It’s unclear why police did not take the students to police stations at Parramatta, Granville, Ermington, Wentworthville, Merrylands, Ryde or another station closer than Gladesville, which is 12 kilometres from the WSU Parramatta South campus.
Footage taken by WSU 4 Palestine shows members of the NSW Police Public Order and Riot Squad forcibly removing a Lebanese student’s keffiyeh and grabbing him by his hair.
Other footage shows police officers chasing a Black male student who is holding a banner reading ‘Haniyeh’s Hall’, a reference to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Haniyeh was assassinated in an Israeli air strike in July. Protesters claim police targeted the pair based on their race.
In a conversation with protesters later that day, WSU provost Professor Kevin Dunn claimed police came to campus on their own volition after learning of the protest on social media.
“We did not call the police,” he told students.
Protesters, however, claim police told them the University invited them onto campus.
On Friday, students and staff organised another protest in support of the arrested students. When they arrived on campus they found a heavy police and security presence.
“The buildings were all locked. The students could enter but they had to go round the back, and security was posted on all the doors,” says Alana Lentin, a WSU cultural studies professor who is active in WSU 4 Palestine. “[Security] were checking IDs and only allowing students who had a class on in that building to enter.”
“In the morning I tried to enter one of the buildings because there’s a prayer room in there, and they said ‘sorry, you can’t pray in there’ because I didn’t have a class in the building, and prayer isn’t a class,” says Naser, a WSU student. “One of the guys actually said to me, ‘Oh no, there’s no prayers today’.”
The same was true for staff, who had to present IDs to enter staff buildings that are normally open.
Police and protesters argued about the whereabouts of a female student who was arrested at her home that morning. Police on campus claimed they did not know where the student had been taken, prompting concerns for her welfare. She has since been released on bail with similar conditions as the other two students.
@alex.mckinnon.91 Police and activists at Western Sydney University are facing off after riot cops arrested two students during a demonstration for Palestin... See more
Based on several campuses across greater western Sydney, WSU’s branding highlights the ethnically and religiously diverse makeup of its student body, as well as the university’s supposed championing of equity, diversity and inclusion.
“The University draws 77% of our students from the [greater western Sydney] region and has an established history in celebrating and promoting the diversity and inclusion of many different cultures,” reads the university’s Equity and Diversity webpage. The university also highlights the many anti-racism initiatives it runs, including its Challenging Racism Project.
However, several leading members of WSU’s administration have categorised pro-Palestinian protests as violent, threatening and antisemitic. In an op ed published in The Australian in May, Westacott wrote that “the hate speech and anti-Semitism occurring on our campuses is a direct assault on Australia’s multiculturalism and its principles”.
“You’re always welcome to express your views, we just have to draw the line on anything that’s violent or threatening or aggressive, and unfortunately today went over the line a bit,” Dunn told protesters on Wednesday. Dunn is a founding member of WSU’s Challenging Racism Project and the author of several academic papers on Islamophobia in Australia.
WSU vice-chancellor George Williams met with representatives of WSU’s Students Representatives Council on Wednesday night and committed to an independent review of Wednesday’s events.
Shortly after his appointment in July, Williams told The Australian he was concerned about the “fraying of social cohesion” on university campuses over the issue of Gaza, and that he strongly backed Westacott’s earlier op ed on the matter.
“I’m really quite proud of what she wrote in that article,” Williams said.
A planned meeting of WSU’s Academic Senate at the Parramatta South campus on Friday was cancelled, with Williams giving an apology.
'“Constitutional lawyer George Williams — the champion of the Voice, the co-author of two books with Megan Davis. I never would have thought that he would be the first Vice Chancellor in my twelve years of working here to preside over the cops being called on students,” Lentin says.
If you’ve got anything to spare, please consider giving some money to this fundraiser I’m running for Noor Hammad, a young mum in Gaza, and her baby daughter Hoor. Any money raised will be sent to Noor's brother Abdallah Abdalrahim, who lives in Sweden and can send her money directly.
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