New York, August 28 (RHC) – The US photo and video sharing service Instagram has blocked the account of the Columbia University organization “Students for Justice in Palestine”. This is another form of censorship by the US technology group Meta Platforms.
“As the academic year is just beginning, Columbia SJP has been permanently banned from Instagram,” the Columbia University student group said in a post on social media platform X on Monday.
“Our account was permanently deleted at 124,000 followers at the same time as our backup account, and when we created a new page, it was deleted within two days,” it said. The suspension of the group’s account was the latest step in a battle over free speech and Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza on the campus of Columbia University and other universities across the United States.
Columbia University in New York City was the cradle of pro-Palestinian demonstrations on U.S. campuses. The protests began on April 17 and spread to other campuses across the U.S. in a student movement the likes of which has never been seen before this century.
The demonstrators demanded an end to Washington’s support for the war, which has so far claimed the lives of 40,476 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 93,647 others. The war has been answered with brutal police violence.
Tel Aviv has also blocked water, food and electricity supplies in the Gaza Strip, triggering a humanitarian crisis in the coastal strip.