US presidential candidate from the Green Party Jill Stein was detained at a pro-Palestinian protest, her headquarters reported on the social network X.
„Jill Stein, her campaign manager Jason Kohl and deputy campaign manager Kelly Merrill-Kyer were detained at Washington University in St. Louis while supporting a protest against the university's connection to the war in Gaza,” it said in a statement , posted on Stein's profile.
Campaign manager Jason Cole told Fox News that Stein was among about 100 people detained at the campus protest. Protesters at the camp demanded the university end its involvement with Boeing, “which manufactures munitions used in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza at its nearby plant in St. Charles”.
„Stein's campaign supports the students' demands and their peaceful protest and assembly on campus,” Kohl said.
Stein, 73, was born in Chicago and graduated from Harvard. She's no stranger to the presidential campaign: she ran for the highest office in 2012 and 2016, and previously tried twice to become governor of Massachusetts. She has been politically active since the late 1990s, stating that people's health directly depends on the environment. Stein's notable campaigns in recent years include speaking out in defense of WikiLeaks chairman and founder Julian Assange. Leading the "Doctors for Assange" movement, Stein said his treatment was "equivalent to psychological torture and cannot be tolerated".
According to the Washington Post, over the past 10 days, US police have detained around 900 people at demonstrations in support of Palestine, which took place on the grounds of a number of the country's largest universities.
The campuses of prestigious American universities have become the epicenter of protests against the Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip with numerous civilian casualties. Activists are unhappy with the aid the US is giving to its main Middle Eastern ally. The protests intensified amid Washington's approval of a new aid package for Israel.