Occupy Athens

This morning at 7 am, a multi-racial and multi-faith group of students and Athens community members of conscience gathered at UGA to stand against genocide. They were met with almost immediate repression and police violence.
By around 7:35 AM, reinforcements from UGA PD and Athens-Clarke County PD arrived. Protesters, knowing their rights and their own moral clarity, stood their ground. Administrators and a team of UGA police issued a dispersal order and gave a ten minute warning to protestors. By 8:20 AM, UGA PD began enacting the kind of violence GILEE participants are known to use against unarmed protesters. Around 8:30 AM, state troopers arrived to overwhelm the protesters with numbers and clear them out of the space with sweeping violence.
Black and Muslim protesters were immediately targeted by UGA Police. Throughout the arrest process, unarmed protesters were dragged by the legs, lifted, thrown, and grappled while UGA administration watched on from the center in complacent approval.
Demanding that UGA stop making students and Athens residents complicit in an ongoing genocide is necessary, as is making the larger community aware of the extent to which this university will go to protect it's investments and partnerships with war profiteers. UGA's actions constitute a flagrant violation of our rights to protest and the kind of civil disobedience that UGA only praises when it took place 60 years ago.
We call on UGA and Athens community members to join us as soon as possible at the Arch in downtown Athens to express solidarity with the arrested protesters and condemn the actions of the UGA administration and police department. 80 UGA & Athens community members have already gathered in solidarity.
We are protesting a genocide. We should be protected and shown solidarity by UGA, not attacked. UGA has shown today where their real concerns lie--and it is not with the safety or needs of their community members.
WE DEMAND SOLIDARITY, PROTECTION, DISCLOSURE, & DIVESTMENT NOW! END UGA COMPLICITY IN GENOCIDE!

Houston Gaines ?