The Georgian government’s bid to pass Russia-style law has met spirited opposition, mostly from young people keen to lean towards Europe

The finale of Beethoven’s “revolutionary” fifth symphony was met with deafening applause at the National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Tbilisi last Thursday night. The cheers grew into a powerful expression of solidarity with the protests outside on Rustaveli Avenue.

People hung EU flags from the theatre’s balconies and shouted, “No to the Russian Law! Europe! Georgia [ Sa-kar-tve-lo ]!”

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The Home Office last week launched a nationwide operation to round up asylum seekers, leaving many fearful and confused

At 2.37pm on Thursday news that a man had “disappeared” rippled through London’s raid-resistance WhatsApp groups. The asylum seeker had walked into the Home Office immigration reporting centre in Hounslow, west London, for a routine appointment, as many people seeking refuge in Britain are required to do. His brother waited outside.

But the man did not come out. Ten minutes passed, then 20, then an hour, then three. The brother waiting outside went in, and came out with bad news: his sibling had been detained and told he faced being deported to Rwanda.

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Staff offer support to protesters as locals donate food, drink, bedding and books

The collection of 12 tents pitched in a soggy garden at the heart of Bristol university’s campus is on a much smaller scale than the Palestine solidarity encampments sweeping the US. But the outrage at what this new generation of student activists regard as the complicity of education institutions in Israel’s assault on Gaza is just as raw.

“It makes me feel sick to my stomach,” said Olivia [not her real name], a second-year student at the university, outside the camp on Friday. “I feel deeply disgusted and ashamed. This protest is absolutely the least I can do for someone studying at a university that is so complicit.” Like many of the students involved in the protest, she doesn’t want to share her name. “There could be academic repercussions [for students taking part]: anything from being banned from university buildings to suspensions and expulsions,” she said. “This has happened in the UK, but not at this university so far.”

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More than 1,400 people have been arrested as police dismantle campus encampments – but are the tactics used too brutal?

More than 1,400 people have been arrested across the US during a week of intense police crackdowns on a sprawling campus movement of pro-Palestine student demonstrations.

As Joe Biden defended students’ free speech rights but warned them that “dissent must never lead to disorder”, colleges across the country brought law enforcement to campus to arrest dozens or even hundreds of protesters and clear away their encampments.

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Please, listen to us – not political figures, radical fringes and misguided media

On Tuesday night, we watched in horror as hundreds of riot police flooded our beloved campus and brutalized our classmates. The next day, students awoke with swollen faces, bruised wrists, and lacerations – all results of inhumane police treatment. The past two weeks have been tumultuous, marked with mass arrests of student demonstrators, an encampment on our lawns, national media attention, and vile acts of hatred. Countless have spoken on our behalf. But by speaking over us, media outlets and politicians have created a distorted narrative – one which unfairly characterizes our community.

Now, it is time to elevate student perspectives, the “us”, rather than the “them”. The traumatic environment and militarization of our campus are not the sole product of ill-intended protestors or reckless non-affiliates as claimed by administrative emails; rather, they are the fault of the senior administration themselves. For months, this crisis has brewed as administrators neglected student and faculty voices. We must be clear: the administration has put our students’ safety at risk and has failed to ensure a conducive learning environment. As student leaders, it is time for our voice to be heard.

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The movement to press for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza has now found itself overshadowed by its loudest voices

The protesters who seized Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall on Tuesday swiftly unfurled a banner down the front of the storied building with just one word: intifada.

Other students among the pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the heart of the New York campus were sceptical about invoking the Arabic call for an uprising because it has been so widely used by pro-Israeli groups to discredit their cause as support for terrorism and therefore antisemitic.

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Irakli Kobakhidze tries to draw a parallel between a crackdown on protests in Georgia and police action on US campuses

As western governments condemn a police crackdown on protesters in Georgia, the country’s prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze , has repeated conspiratorial narratives and lashed out at the United States – while attempting to draw a parallel between police action in Georgia and police action on US college campuses.

Georgia’s government has been pushing a ‘foreign agents’ law which critics say is anti-democratic and inspired by Russia.

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Union of Jewish Students deplores ‘torrent of antisemitic hatred’ in British universities since start of Israel-Gaza war

The prime minister has backed a police crackdown on any outbreak of disorder on university campuses, as Jewish students warned that pro-Palestinian encampments are creating a “hostile and toxic atmosphere”.

In recent days, new encampments have been set up at the universities of Manchester, Sheffield, Bristol and Newcastle, among others, after violent scenes on US campuses resulted in mass arrests of students and staff.

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Slow response from authorities left students shocked as people wearing white masks attacked pro-Palestine protesters

When Meghna Nair, a second-year student at the University of California, Los Angeles, saw a masked group of people headed toward the pro-Palestine encampment on campus late on Tuesday evening, she expected trouble.

“I knew where they were going. I had an idea what they planned to do,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do.”

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