Green Party 2024 US presidential candidate Jill Stein was detained at a pro-Palestinian protest, her campaign said.
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“Jill Stein, her campaign manager Jason Call, 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,” a message posted on Stein’s account in social network X said.
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Campaign manager Jason Call told Fox News that Stein was among about 100 people detained at the protest on campus. Protesters camped out to demand that the university end its equity stake in Boeing, “which produces munitions used in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza at its nearby St. Charles facility.”
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“Stein’s campaign supports the students’ demands and their peaceful protest and gathering on campus,” Call said.
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Stein, a Chicago native and Harvard graduate, is 73 years old. The presidential campaign is no stranger to her: She ran for the Green Party’s top office in 2012 and 2016, and before that twice tried to become governor of Massachusetts. In this state, she has been involved in activism since the late 90s, declaring that people’s health directly depends on the environment.
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Stein’s prominent campaigns in recent years have included speaking out in defense of WikiLeaks chairman and founder Julian Assange. Leading the Doctors for Assange movement, Stein stated that his treatment was “tantamount to psychological torture and cannot be tolerated.”
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According to the Washington Post, over the past 10 days, American police have detained about 900 people at demonstrations in support of Palestine, which took place on the territory of a number of the nation’s largest universities.
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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 dissatisfied with the assistance the United States is providing to its main Middle Eastern ally. The protests intensified amid Washington’s approval of a new aid package for Israel.
