At 1:00 p.m. on Jan. 20, the University of Oregon chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine and Free Palestine Eugene organized a demonstration that began in downtown Eugene and ended with two arrests, police blockades and condemnation of the protest by the local UO Jewish student organization — Oregon Hillel.
SJP claims that over 200 people were in attendance, while the Eugene Police Department claims the number was closer to 100-150 people.
The protestors marched down 8th Avenue, Willamette and 13th streets toward campus, blocking the roads as they proceeded. The organizers of the march said they had a system established in which demonstrators would bike ahead of the main group and work to block intersections, while three cars would follow behind to prevent traffic from approaching from that direction.
“As an organizer, if I felt like it was a concern of mine that people were going to be endangered by any sort of reason for walking on the street or marching alongside me, I wouldn’t do it to begin with,” co-director of SJP and march organizer Salem Khoury said.
According to EPD Public Information Director Melinda McLaughlin, the organizers did not request a permit to march in the street from the city of Eugene prior to the march.
“Prior to the march, Eugene Police had attempted to contact organizers to help facilitate their right to march,” McLaughlin said. “But they were not receptive.’’
Khoury confirmed that organizers indeed did not notify either the city of Eugene or EPD of their march route prior to the demonstration, but said that the lack of communication was intentional.
“As a Palestinian it’s not ideal for me to have law enforcement and the city to have my name, my face and attach me to any future protest,” Khoury said. “We don’t know what’s gonna happen along the course of this, what counter-protests will arrive, what the cops will think, and the less they know, the better.”
While there were no counter-protesters at the Jan. 20 march, there was an instance in which a large truck stopped at an intersection, before lightly accelerating into bikers blocking the road on 8th Avenue.
The truck halted right before the bikers and the driver yelled at demonstrators.
Khoury said that ideally they would “love’’ to communicate with the city, but then they would “unfortunately have to abide by specific regulations which wouldn’t make it easy for us to go through with that protest.”
Khoury also said that they did not notify the city beforehand because this protest was planned in one week, whereas a protest on this scale — involving potentially hundreds of people and road blocks — would usually take two weeks to organize.
After protestors marched into and briefly occupied the Erb Memorial Union on UO campus, they marched down East 15th Avenue, and took a right onto Villard before being blocked by EPD officers.
In a statement released by EPD on Jan. 22, it said, “it became apparent they [protestors] were going to walk onto Franklin Boulevard, which is a major thoroughfare connecting Eugene and Springfield and has high average speeds for vehicles.”
Khoury said that it was never the protestors’ intent to march onto Franklin, but only to briefly cross the road before crossing back over one block further west.
As protestors paused before the police blockade in front of Franklin, some hurled insults toward the officers. The protestors ended up marching west on the sidewalk along Franklin Boulevard.
According to the EPD statement, “officers attempted to keep the crowd from taking over the W. 11th Avenue roadway, however the group outnumbered the officers available and broke through.”
It was during this time that the first arrest occurred, when police say one demonstrator, Franz Martin Miller, began pushing a police officer on their bike with his own bike.
In a SJP press release about the protest, Miller said, “The statements the police have made about me are unsubstantiated, the only pushing I did was pushing for a ceasefire.”
The protestors then marched by the Oregon Hillel building, but Khoury said that the only reason why they went this way was because police had blocked off other routes and cornered them on both sides in front of the building.
“We didn’t intend to go down there,” Khoury said.
Police also arrested an organizer, Eric Howanietz, who they claim was encouraging protesters to march on East Broadway, which was blocked off by the EPD. As officers attempted to arrest Howanietz he fell to the ground and grabbed another protester’s leg. During this time the EPD said that officers were “surrounded by people who were screaming and threatening them, creating a potentially very dangerous situation.” The EPD alleges that an officer was spit on as well.
Khoury claimed that the EPD account was “highly exaggerated,” and that “unlawful force” was used when apprehending Howanietz.
“The arrests were very jarring, we didn’t understand why our peaceful protest was met with such violence,” Khoury said.
Oregon Hillel released a statement on Jan. 22 with a different perspective than SJP on the incident.
“We are aware that over the weekend, the University of Oregon SJP chapter co-organized a rally that concluded in front of the Hillel building,” the statement read. “We don’t know if our building was specifically targeted or not, but the hateful demonstration was swiftly addressed by law enforcement, and we appreciate their quick action to ensure that this did not escalate. Targeted hatred of this nature does not reflect the values of our community or represent the inclusive nature of the University of Oregon campus…Hillel is at the forefront of confronting antisemitism on campus and ensuring the safety of Jewish students. Oregon Hillel and the University of Oregon are working together to improve the environment for Jewish students, and despite the real challenges of rising antisemitism around the world, we are proud to help Jewish students thrive and support them in building strong Jewish identities.”
A portion of this statement was also emailed to the Emerald when it reached out to Oregon Hillel for comment.
Khoury accused the statement released by Oregon Hillel of being dehumanizing, defamatory and false.
“With the intent of antisemitism, why would we include as many Jewish voices as we did in our protest? And we love to do that because we appreciate the solidarity of the Jewish community on campus,” Khoury said. “I didn’t even know it [the Hillel building] was there at all, until someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘that’s the Hillel building.’”
Khoury further said that there was no antisemitic signage, chants or intent in the march. “This is about Palestine. We are here for peace, and we are here out of love. And to see that criticized so harshly breaks my heart. The intent [of Hillel’s statement] was to alarm people. That is not only insensitive, it is wrong.”
Khoury said that contrary to Oregon Hillel’s statement, the demonstration did not end in front of the Hillel building.
“The protest ended at Kesey Square, it lasted for about 45 minutes to an hour past the Hillel building,” Khoury said.
