PHILADELPHIA — Four students involved in pro-Palestinian protests at the University of Pennsylvania have been suspended for their actions, a student group said.

Two students were suspended for one semester, and two for a full year. Two graduate students and two undergraduates received the discipline, which has not yet gone into effect and can still be appealed by the students.

The sanctions follow a 16-day encampment at the university that ended in May with police breaking up the encampment and 33 arrests, including nine student arrests.

The suspensions were handed down by the University of Pennsylvania's disciplinary office, the Center for Community Standards and Accountability.

"Penn continues to review student conduct cases in connection with campus demonstrations this spring," a university spokesperson said Tuesday. "The University affords due process to all students in accordance with our policies and recommends sanctions as appropriate on a case-by-case basis."

The student suspensions come "after months of relentless university repression and targeted discipline against pro-Palestine students," the group Freedom School for Palestine, a pro-Palestinian student group, said in a statement. "These students have been robbed of their access to education, income, work-study jobs, and health insurance as a result of this suspension."

Hilah Kohen, a Penn graduate student in comparative literature and literary theory, received a one-year suspension for participation in pro-Palestinian activities, they said. They condemned Penn's "dictatorial actions."

Kohen, a Falk Fellow in Jewish Studies at the university, said the student movement's "solidarity with Palestine is just one part of a global whole. ...Any ethical thinker must keep their focus on Palestinian resistance to genocide."

Kohen was arrested when the encampment was broken up, and have also been banned from campus indefinitely by another university body. That ban still holds, they said.

Iman, a junior design undergraduate whose last name is being withheld because he is afraid for his safety, has been suspended for one semester. He was also arrested when police broke up the encampment, but criminal charges were later dropped for both him and Kohen. The reasons the university cited for suspending him were confusing, he said — they were "specific to building codes and a threat to student safety, even though my charges were completely dropped and there is no criminal case. I have no record whatsoever."

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