At least a thousand pro-Palestinian protesters took over the Brooklyn Museum in New York on Friday, with a small group occupying the lobby while others unfurled banners on the facade of the building reading “Free Palestine: Divest from Genocide.” Police arrested at least 34 people, including Within Our Lifetime founder Nerdeen Kiswani, whose hijab was ripped off as officers tackled and arrested her. Democracy Now! was on the scene and spoke with protesters, who said that almost eight months into Israel’s brutal assault on the Gaza Strip, prominent institutions in the U.S. have an obligation to disclose their ties to the occupation and divest. “We are making it clear that we will continue to occupy institutions just like this one and call out individuals like the board of the Brooklyn Museum to make clear that their money and our money is being used for this genocide,” said Abdullah Akl, a member of Within Our Lifetime, a Palestinian-led community organization.

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Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

Protests over Israel’s eight-month war on Gaza continue around the world, across the United States. Here in New York, over a thousand protesters gathered at the Brooklyn Museum Friday to demand it disclose and divest from any investments linked to Israel’s war on Gaza. Some of the activists dropped a banner from the outside of the museum, from the roof, that read, quote, “Free Palestine: Divest from Genocide.” Others went inside the museum to, quote, “de-occupy” it by erecting tents and more banners in the lobby. Democracy Now! was there.

PROTESTERS: Intifada! Revolution! Intifada! Revolution!

MARZ: My name is Marz, and I’m here today as a concerned community member, educator and artist. So, what’s very obvious is that the museum doesn’t want to talk. They want to stay silent during a genocide. And they’re trying to silence workers, because the workers actually penned a letter in November 2023 asking the museum to say there’s a genocide, asking the museum to divest from genocide, and asking the museum to listen to its workers and the community.

And so, we’re here today, again, to pressure the museum to say that there’s a genocide, to divest from genocide, to help end the occupation, and also to honor the workers and the things that they have already spelled out over the years against Anne Pasternak and the Brooklyn Museum. So, today, on Friday, May 31st, a couple hundred artists, cultural workers, educators and many, many more joined together here in the lobby at the Brooklyn Museum around 4:30 p.m.

PROTESTERS: Free, free, free Palestine!

PROTESTER 1: [echoed by the people’s mic] We shut down the Brooklyn Museum, and this will not be the last time, because every institution complicit in genocide will see us!

ABDULLAH AKL: My name is Abdullah Akl, and I’m part of the group Within Our Lifetime-United for Palestine. We’re out here today in front of the Brooklyn Museum to make it clear that the Brooklyn Museum continues to invest and be complicit and play an active role in the genocide that’s taking place in Gaza and in Rafah. And we are making it clear that we will continue to occupy institutions just like this one and call out individuals like the board of the Brooklyn Museum to make clear that their money and our money is being used for this genocide.

So, the deputy commissioner of the NYPD, Kaz Daughtry, is actually here on scene, which gives us a very clear message that if he is out here with hundreds of riot gear officers and SRG, which is a counterterrorism unit used to surveil protests, and put out drones and multiple helicopters for a peaceful protest, it means one thing: They are not on the side of justice; they are on the side of genocide.

AMY GOODMAN: At least 34 people were arrested during Friday’s protest at the Brooklyn Museum. Outside, New York police officers were again filmed using violent tactics to arrest the protesters. A captain of the Strategic Response Group, who was identified as Christopher Carlson, was seen punching at least two women at the protest.

Inside the museum, one of the leading activists with the group Within Our Lifetime, Nerdeen Kiswani, was violently tackled by New York police officers, who then arrested her as her hijab came off. We’ve blurred this part at her request.

NERDEEN KISWANI: What are you doing? No!

POLICE OFFICER 1: Back up!

NERDEEN KISWANI: What are you doing?

PROTESTER 2: What’s going on?

POLICE OFFICER 1: Back up!

PROTESTER 2: What are you doing?

POLICE OFFICER 1: Back up!

PROTESTER 3: You ripped her hijab off!

PROTESTERS: Let her go! Let her go! Let her go! Let her go! Let her go! Let her go! Let her go! Let her go! Let her go! Let her go! Let her go! Let her go! Let her go! Let her go!

POLICE OFFICER 2: All right, you guys are under arrest for trespassing.

PROTESTERS: Let her go! Let her go!

POLICE OFFICER 2: You guys are under arrest for trespassing.

PROTESTERS: Let her go! Let her go! Let her go! Let her go!

NERDEEN KISWANI: My hijab is off. You have to blur this. They’re not allowing me to put my hijab back on. I cannot feel my thumbs. They’re hurting me. They’re pulling me apart.

ARRESTED PROTESTER: You guys are going to do this, and then what?

NERDEEN KISWANI: Men, Muslim men, cannot touch me.

ARRESTED PROTESTER: You guys are going to do this, and then what?

NERDEEN KISWANI: Men cannot touch me. I’m Muslim. I need a woman. I need a woman.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Nerdeen Kiswani, one of the founders of the group WOL — that’s Within Our Lifetime — again, tackled by New York police officers, her hijab coming off as they arrested her during this major protest at the Brooklyn Museum Friday evening.

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