14 indicted in UTD protest case for obstructing passageway amid free speech concerns
Nearly a year after authorities broke up a pro-Palestinian protest on the campus of The University of Texas at Dallas, indictments have been handed down by a Collin County grand jury.
UTD students and professors were among the 21 people who spent the night in the Collin County Jail.
On Thursday, the Collin County District Attorney announced that 14 of the arrested had been indicted for obstructing a passageway, a class B misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in jail.
Greg Willis said the case should not be interpreted as a prosecution of the protest itself.
"Free speech is one of our most important constitutional rights and enforcing the law is actually what keeps free speech standing strong," said Willis.
Willis said those indicted were interlocking their arms and blocking a pathway, refusing multiple commands to disperse. At least four UTD professors who were also arrested were not indicted by the grand jury.
"It's all about the evidence and it's about the law, so in that sense, [we] will treat these cases like we will any other case," said Willis. "We follow the evidence. We are fact-driven."
Students for Justice in Palestine set up an encampment in an area known as Chess Plaza.
Adwoa Asante and Dan Sullivan are the attorneys representing the 14 indicted protestors.
"The indictment has a chilling impact on political speech nationally," said Asante. "I mean, this isn't one and done. This is part of a whole array of political repression for, you know, those people of conscience in the United States that are opposed to genocide in
"And the way that they're reading that statute, it seems to me, means that the police can shut down any protest they want, anytime they want, simply by saying it's obstructing something," Sullivan said. "A plaza, a park, if you have a protest anywhere, you could inconvenience someone."
While there haven't been violent clashes with authorities around campus since the demonstrations last year, Students for Justice in Palestine continues to promote protests around campus, including one planned for May during the school's design expo.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Russia launches one of war's largest air attacks days after Ukraine's bomber raid
Russia launched a barrage of drones and ballistic missiles across broad swaths of Ukraine early Friday, killing at least six people and injuring dozens of others, days after Kyiv launched a daring raid on Moscow's fleet of strategic bombers. For residents of Kyiv, the night's soundtrack was familiar: the shrieking whir of drones, air raid sirens and large explosions overhead – whether from air defenses successfully downing missiles, or projectiles puncturing the capital. Three firefighters were killed in Kyiv, two civilians were killed in Lutsk, and another person was killed in Chernihiv, according to the Ukrainian State Emergency Service. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had used more than 400 drones and 40 missiles in the overnight attack, putting it among the war's largest. He said Moscow's attack injured 80 and targeted 'almost all' of Ukraine, listing nine regions, from Lviv in the west to Sumy in the northeast. Although Russia has pummeled Ukraine almost daily over three years of full-scale war, Ukrainians had been bracing for retaliation since Sunday, when Kyiv launched an audacious operation that struck more than a third of Russia's strategic cruise missile carriers. In a call with his US counterpart Donald Trump on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow would have to respond to Kyiv's assault. Speaking aboard Air Force One on Friday, Trump told reporters Ukraine 'gave Putin a reason to go in and bomb the hell out of them last night.' Russia's Ministry of Defense said its strikes were in response to what it called Kyiv's 'terrorist acts.' It was not immediately clear if the attack was the extent of Russia's pledged retaliation, or if Putin intends to escalate further. After the embarrassment of Kyiv's operation, there was a chorus of bellicose calls from pro-Kremlin pundits for a severe – potentially nuclear – response. Although Ukrainians had been buoyed last weekend by the news of Kyiv's successful operation, many were wary of how Russia might strike back. But after Friday's strikes, Kyiv residents told CNN they supported Ukraine's strikes against the aircraft Moscow has used to bomb Ukraine for more than three years. 'It didn't break us at all. The morale is as high as it was. We strongly believe in our armed forces,' said Olha, a 39-year-old from the capital who did not wish to give her last name. She said the apparent 'retaliation' from Russia was not so different to countless other nights of the war. 'Maybe (this was the retaliation), but maybe the retaliation is yet to come. Either way, it doesn't change our attitude towards the enemy or towards our country.' Meanwhile, Ukraine's general staff on Friday said it launched overnight strikes on two Russian airfields, where it said Moscow had concentrated many of the aircraft that had not been damaged in Kyiv's 'Spiderweb' operation last weekend. Ukraine stressed that the operation, which blindsided the Kremlin, had targeted the planes that Russia uses to launch missile strikes on Ukrainian cities and kill civilians. After Russia's large-scale attack Friday, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Moscow had 'responded' to its destroyed aircraft by once again 'attacking civilians in Ukraine.' As daylight broke, images from Kyiv showed flames rising over apartment buildings and firefighting crews at work, with residents picking through the debris of damaged apartments. Several cars parked in the streets below were covered with shards of glass and slabs of masonry torn from the walls of residential buildings. Ukraine's air force said Russia's barrage comprised 407 drones, six ballistic missiles, 38 cruise missiles and an anti-radar missile. Of those 452 projectiles, the air force said it had downed 406, including 32 of the cruise missiles and four of the ballistic missiles. The other two ballistic missiles did not reach their targets, it added. The strikes also hit Chernihiv, near the border with Belarus, which was rocked by 14 explosions from drones and ballistic missiles, including cruise missiles and Iskander-M missiles, local officials said. Five others were wounded in strikes in the northwestern city of Lutsk, near the border with Poland. Footage geolocated by CNN showed at least four missiles slamming into the city, kicking up fiery explosions on impact. The Russian Ministry of Defense said it had also intercepted and destroyed 174 Ukrainian drones from Thursday evening to early Friday morning and had destroyed three Ukrainian Neptune-MD guided missiles over the Black Sea. All week, Ukrainians have been bracing for Russia's retaliation to last weekend's drone attack, which struck 34% of Moscow's nuclear-capable bombers stationed at airfields as far away as Siberia. On Tuesday, Ukraine also launched an attack on the Kerch Bridge, the only direct connection point between Russia and the annexed Crimean Peninsula, with 1,100 kilograms of explosives that had been planted underwater. After Trump's call with Putin on Wednesday, the US president said his Russian counterpart had told him that Moscow would have to respond to Ukraine's assaults. Trump's account of the call gave no indication that he had urged Putin to temper his response, to the dismay of many in Ukraine. 'When Putin mentioned he is going to avenge or deliver a new strike against Ukraine, we know what it means. It's about civilians,' Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksandr Merezhko told CNN earlier this week. 'And President Trump didn't say, 'Vladimir, stop.'' Despite Trump's support for recent peace talks in Istanbul between Ukraine and Russia, on Thursday he signaled that he may be adopting a more hands-off approach, likening the war to a brawl between children. 'Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy,' Trump said in the Oval Office, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz looked on silently. 'They hate each other, and they're fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don't want to be pulled. Sometimes you're better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.'
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Who is leading the criminal mobs in Gaza that are armed by Israel?
Yasser Abu Shabab's Popular Force militia might get Israeli support as the fight for Gaza intensifies Yasser Abu Shabab has been named as the leader of a Palestinian militia in Gaza that Israeli officials have reportedly armed to attempt to undermine Hamas, the New York Times reported on Friday. Abu Shabab, a Bedouin man in his 30s, leads the Popular Forces, a crime group in Gaza that is significantly smaller than Hamas. On Thursday, Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman claimed on Kan Reshet Bet that Israel is arming crime families and militias in Gaza to fight Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office did not deny Liberman's claim, and defended his decision. 'What's bad about it?' he said, as reported by the New York Times. 'It's only good and it only saves the lives of Israel Defense Force soldiers.' A Thursday press release from the Prime Minister's Office stated: 'Israel is working to defeat Hamas through various means, as recommended by all heads of the security establishment.' A video posted on Wednesday showed Abu Shabab telling the people of Rafah to return home, and said that food, medicine, and shelter would be provided. He then said he and his forces were working under 'Palestinian legitimacy,' a phrase that the report noted the Palestinian Authority often uses. However, analysts interviewed by the New York Times claim that the government is arming groups like the Popular Forces in order to avoid a long-term occupation of Gaza or a Palestinian Authority-led government ruling the enclave. 'If you think about who really can be an alternative to Hamas in Gaza, you have two options: either an Israeli military administration or the Palestinian Authority,' said retired Brig. Gen. Shlomo Brom, a former top Israeli military strategist. Brom told the New York Times that given the choices, the Israeli government was looking for 'other solutions.' Abu Shabab has been accused several times of looting aid trucks in the Gaza Strip by aid truck drivers and international humanitarian officials. Senior UN official Georgios Petropoulos once called him 'the self-styled power broker of east Rafah,' according to the report. In an interview quoted in the report, Abu Shabab said that he did not raid the trucks, and instead asserted that he was feeding his community. 'We are taking trucks so we can eat, not so we can sell,' he said, accusing Hamas of stealing aid. The Popular Forces also said that it had safeguarded aid trucks entering the enclave. 'We confirm that 92 trucks were secured and entered areas under the protection of our popular forces, and exited safely under our supervision,' a post from the criminal grou reads. Liberman originally claimed that the Palestinian groups were affiliated with ISIS. The New York Times report did not mention these claims. The Yisrael Beytenu leader also said that the matter did not pass cabinet approval, and said that he did not know if the IDF was aware of the operation. 'In my opinion, this did not pass cabinet approval,' he said. 'This was with the knowledge of the head of the Shin Bet [Israel Security Agency], but I don't know how much the [IDF] chief of staff was privy to the matter. Amichai Stein contributed to this report.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump administration orders US embassies to stop student visa interviews
The Trump administration has ordered US embassies worldwide to immediately stop scheduling visa interviews for foreign students as it prepares to implement comprehensive social media screening for all international applicants. A Tuesday state department cable obtained by the Guardian instructs consular sections to pause adding 'any additional student or exchange visitor (F, M, and J) visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued' within days. The directive, first reported by Politico , could severely delay visa processing and hurt universities – many of which Donald Trump accuses of having far-left ideologies – that rely heavily on foreign students for revenue. 'The department is conducting a review of existing operations and processes for screening and vetting of student and exchange visitor visa applicants,' the cable reads. Officials plan to issue guidance on 'expanded social media vetting for all such applicants'. The freeze is a further escalation from current screening measures, which have primarily targeted students who participated in pro-Palestinian campus protests. Since March, consular officers have been required to conduct mandatory social media reviews looking for evidence of support for 'terrorist activity or a terrorist organization' which could be as broad as showing support for the Palestinian cause, according to a cable obtained by the Guardian at the time. That directive required officers to take screenshots of 'potentially derogatory' content for permanent records, even if posts were later deleted. The new expansion would apply social media vetting to all student visa applicants, not just those flagged for activism. Under the screening process, consular officers would examine applicants' posts, shares, and comments across platforms such as Instagram, X and TikTok for content they deem to be threatening to national security, which has since been tied in to the Trump administration's stance on combating antisemitism. Rubio told senators last week that his department has revoked visas numbering 'probably in the thousands at this point', up from more than 300 reported in March. 'I don't know the latest count, but we probably have more to do,' he said. There are more than one million foreign students in the US, contributing nearly $43.8bn to the economy and supporting more than 378,000 jobs in 2023 to 2024, according to NAFSA. The visa freeze threatens to compound existing challenges facing higher education institutions already experiencing declining international enrollment. When reached for comment, a state department spokesperson said that 'every visa adjudication is a national security decision', noting that visitors applying for visas were required to provide social media identifiers since 2019. 'The Trump administration is focused on protecting our nation and our citizens by upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety through our visa process,' the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
