Columbia University drops deadline for dismantling antiwar protest camp

Columbia University backed off late on Thursday from an overnight deadline for pro-Palestinian protesters to abandon an encampment there as more college campuses in the United States sought to prevent occupations from taking hold.

The office of New York-based Columbia University president Minouche Shafik issued a statement at 11:07 pm (0307 GMT Friday) retreating from a midnight deadline to dismantle a large tent camp with around 200 students.

"The talks have shown progress and are continuing as planned," the statement said. "We have our demands; they have theirs."

The statement denied that New York City police were invited on the campus. "This rumor is false," it said.

A student, identifying herself only as Mimi, told AFP she had been at the camp for seven days.

"They call us terrorists, they call us violent. But the only tool we actually have are our voices," she said.

Student protesters say they are expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the death toll has topped 34,305, according to the territory's health ministry.

More than 200 people protesting the war were arrested Wednesday and early Thursday at universities in Los Angeles, Boston and Austin, Texas, where around 2,000 people gathered again on Thursday.

Riot officers in the southern state of Georgia used chemical irritants and tasers to disperse protests at Emory University in Atlanta.

Photographs showed police wielding tasers as they wrestled with protesters on neatly manicured lawns.

The Atlanta Police Department said officers responding to the school's request for help were "met with violence" and used "chemical irritants" in their response.