CSUS Student Hunger Strike

*** PRESS RELEASE***

For press inquiries, please contact

Amal Dawud (916) 670-4941 – CSUS

Haddy Barghouti, (408) 504-6261 – SJSU

Max Flynt, (650) 515-7838 – SFSU

BREAKING: CSU Students Begin Hunger Strike in Protest of Forced Starvation of Gazans as Genocide Intensifies
  Students from San Jose State University begin a Hunger Strike Demanding Divestment from Defense Companies Tied to Israel’s Genocide in Gaza, alongside students from CSU Long Beach, Sacramento, and San Francisco State Universities.
 

Pictures/Videos from announcement and rally:

SAN JOSE/LONG BEACH/SACRAMENTO/SAN FRANCISCO – On, May 5th, students from four universities across the California State University System, CSU Long Beach, San Jose, Sacramento, and San Francisco,  will begin a united hunger strike in solidarity with the two million Palestinians at risk of starvation in Gaza. Students from each of these universities are beginning an indefinite hunger strike demanding that each CSU campus adopt the divestment language passed at San Francisco and Sacramento State Universities as a result of the Gaza Solidarity Encampments this time last year. This development comes just days after the University of San Francisco committed to divesting from defense companies complicit in the Israeli government’s genocide of Palestinians.

“We as San Jose State University students deplore our university’s administration for choosing to remain complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people.” said Haddy Barghouti of Students for Justice in Palestine at San Jose State Univeristy. “As the genocide continues, and San Jose State administration continues to ignore international law, it is up to us as students to take matters into our own hands and make the issue unavoidable, which is why we will be starving in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Gaza until university administration meets all of our demands.”

CSU students are demanding San Jose State University, Long Beach State University, and the California State University system currently adopt the San Francisco State University Human Rights IPS Screening. CSU Divestment: from companies that supply weapons, military and surveillance technology, infrastructure, or conduct activity that violates human rights as defined by international law. This includes, but is not limited to: Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar, Palantir, and Leonardo. Ending all ties to Israeli Institutions within Study Abroad programs. This includes ending any academic partnerships with Zionist universities and the CSU International Program at the University of Haifa. Upholding Free Speech and ending all time, place, and manner restrictions, which were created in an effort to silence student organzing.

“We, the students of Sacramento and San Francisco State, acknowledge that our universities achieved individual divestment on our campuses, but the California State University system remains complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people through millions of dollars invested in defense companies and weapons manufacturers,” said Max Flynt, a member of the General Union of Palestine Students at San Francisco State University. “This act of solidarity aims to shed light on what exactly the people of Gaza are facing, and make it inescapable for the administrations of these universities as students have continued to organize since the beginning of this genocide. We will continue to strike in solidarity with other CSU campuses and with the people of Gaza who face bombardment and a forced starvation campaign facilitated by the Israeli government.”

Since Israel’s unilateral breaking of the January 17th ceasefire agreement, it has intensified its suffocating siege on Gaza, preventing life-saving humanitarian aid from entering the area while destroying Gaza’s few remaining hospitals, murdering medical professionals, indiscriminately bombing make-shift tent homes, and burning Palestinians alive. These horrific attacks, which constitute flagrant violations of international humanitarian law, have been conducted with impunity by the United States and the international community at large. As a result of Israel’s complete block of aid, Gaza has been depleted of its entire food supply, effectively deploying a new stage in the  genocide, one that cannot continue to go dismissed. 

###