Four student journalists working for the UCLA Daily Bruin were attacked shortly before 3:30 a.m. Wednesday Pro-Israel counter-protesters During a campus demonstration that turned violent.
Daily Bruin news editor Katherine Hamilton, 21, told The Times that she recognized one of the counter-protesters as the man who had previously verbally harassed her and taken photographs of her press badge. The man directed the group to surround the student journalists, he said, before spraying all four with mace or pepper spray, shining lights in their faces and chanting Hamilton’s name.
As he tried to break free, Hamilton said, he was punched repeatedly in the chest and upper abdomen; Another student journalist was pushed to the ground and beaten and kicked for about a minute. The attack was first reported in the Daily Bruin.
“We expected to be harassed by counter-protesters,” Hamilton said in an interview Wednesday, adding that he instructed every Daily Bruin reporter to use a buddy system, report from outside the encampment and leave the area if it was unsafe. was given. “I really didn’t expect to be attacked so directly.”
Shantha Kodiyalam, one of the other student journalists who was attacked, said he saw his friend being thrown to the ground and pleading with the counter-protesters to stop.
“That’s not easy work to do. It is not easy to cover this incident,” Kodiyalam, 21, said on Wednesday, recalling how his eyes were burnt by the spray. “At the end of the day, we’re all trying to do our best to serve our campus community and make sure that our students, our faculty, our staff have the information they need.”
The incident lasted for about five minutes. The group of four accompanied their editor-in-chief to the Daily Bruin newsroom before Hamilton went to the hospital after his injury made it difficult for him to stand and breathe. He has since been released.
The attack is one of many recent events Involvement of journalists. It is one of the first known attacks involving student journalists covering ongoing unrest on campuses over the Israel–Hamas war, often when outside news media are prevented from entering universities.
Hamilton, who has been a journalist for three years, said she believed her identity as a journalist would have prevented her from being attacked. Instead, she said, it made her a target.
“Until last night, I never feared for my safety or the safety of my fellow Daily Bruin employees,” he said. “I was looking for the three other people who were with me the whole time, to make sure they were safe. Because I couldn’t trust that they would be.”
Aggression against journalists at protests and demonstrations has increased steadily over the past 20 years “in the age of Internet surveillance and photographic capture,” said Steve Wasserman, publisher of Heyday Books, a Berkeley-based nonprofit.
Wasserman was arrested at UC Berkeley in 1970 during an anti-Vietnam War demonstration when he was a student. He said a big difference between now and then is that earlier the press was viewed with more neutrality.
He said, “The press was largely regarded as a neutral arbiter… and could be useful in spreading the word about the causes around which protests occurred.”
Now, growing distrust of the media has made the current aggressive behavior almost normal.
Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders, USA, said recent threats against journalists were reminiscent of the summer of 2020, when protests erupted over the police killing of George Floyd.
“I hope we’re not going back down the same path,” Weimers said.
There were record numbers of arrests of journalists and attacks against the press during that period four years earlier, according to the US Press Freedom Tracker.
“It is essential that (professional) journalists and student journalists who are covering their communities are able to do their work without fear of attack,” said Katherine Jacobsen, U.S., Canada and Caribbean program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists. he said. “It’s also really important that law enforcement and school administrators across the United States provide conditions in which student journalists and other journalists can do their work without worry of attack.”
University of California President Michael V. Drake said Wednesday that he has ordered an independent review of the university’s actions Law enforcement response For violence.
The Daily Bruin, which said its site was being closed intermittently on Wednesday due to increased traffic, had earlier reported that a building designated as an area for student journalists to seek safety was then closed. When journalists tried to reach him. UCLA did not directly respond to emailed questions from the Times about that claim.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement, “I want to express my sincere sympathies to those who were injured last night, and to all those who have suffered harm or who fear for their safety in recent days. Fear.” “We are still gathering information about the attack on the camp last night, and I can assure you that we will conduct a full investigation that may lead to arrest, expulsion and dismissal.”
Hamilton, a junior, is one of two students who have led the Daily Bruin’s coverage of the response to the Israel-Hamas war, which began on October 7 when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel , in which an estimated 1,200 people were killed and approximately 240 hostages were taken. , According to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, an estimated 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli retaliatory attacks in the Gaza Strip.
Hamilton said that despite what happened, she would continue covering the unrest on campus. And Kodiyalam, also a junior, continued his coverage on Wednesday afternoon.
He said, “I can’t sit back and see my friends, my teammates, people who have trained me, people I have trained, getting hurt like this and not allowing themselves to continue their work. “
