Paul Lewis, Matthew Taylor and Patrick Wintour – The Guardian – 25th Nov 2010
Police hold protesters back during a mass demonstration in London against tuition fee rises and funding cuts. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Britain’s most senior police officer warned today of a new era of civil unrest as the national campaign against university fee increases and education cuts gathered momentum.
Sir Paul Stephenson, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, said the two large-scale student demonstrations of the past fortnight had been marred by a previously unseen level of violence, adding: “The game has changed.”
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Lizzie Cocker – Morning Star – 25th November 2010
Police tactics used against student protesters on Wednesday were condemned as “outrageous and unacceptable yesterday by anti-cuts groups the Coalition of Resistance and National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC).
An estimated 130,000 school, college and university students across Britain participated in the day of action, which saw protesters in London -some as young as 13 – pressed into an area at Whitehall for almost nine hours without access to food, water or toilet facilities.
During a press conference which attracted national and international press, University of London Union president Clare Solomon said that it was “unbelievable that the police do not know the law themselves. Collective punishment was outlawed at the Nuremberg tribunal.”
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Daniel Renwick – GDSC – 25th Nov 2010
There are some actions and policies of government that demand action. Not action without thought, but reactive, cathartic action. When confronted with the naked truth of the situation, knowing that passivity and inertia are understood by the State as tacit consent, dissent must be heard.
The demographic most responsive to the call to dissent are the youth. Both the Gaza demonstrations of 2009 and this fateful November have been fuelled by the passion of mid-to-late teens. This world is theirs to inherit, they will not accept the perpetuation of settler colonialism, backed up with mass murder. Likewise, they will not accept a cuts agenda that stratifies society to protect the capital of the elites at the expense of the vast majority.
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Lizzie Cocker – Morning Star – 24th November 2010
Thousands of school and university students turned out on the streets of London today to voice their anger at the Con-Dem coalition’s vicious assault on Britain’s education system.
Following their embarrassment earlier this month, when thousands of students beseiged and invaded Tory HQ, riot police reacted against peaceful protesters with a brutal containment strategy, corralling crowds in Whitehall for several hours.
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By staff writers – 16 November 2010
Over one hundred professors, academics and staff from British universities have signed a letter backing students who occupied Tory HQ as part of the recent anti-cuts demonstration.
Writing to the independent newspaper, they congratulate staff, students and [a]t least 50,000 people [who] took to the streets to oppose the coalition government’s devastating proposals for education.”
Distancing themselves from those who criticised the occupation of the Conservative Party HQ, they say: “The real violence in this situation relates not to a smashed window but to the destructive impact of the cuts and privatisation that will follow if tuition fees are increased and if massive reductions in Higher Education funding are implemented.”
The academics add: “[Last] Wednesday’s events demonstrate the deep hostility in the UK towards the cuts proposed in the Comprehensive Spending Review. We hope that this marks the beginning of a sustained defence of public services and welfare provision as well as higher education.”
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Fitwatch – 17th November 2010
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Websites publish advice to student protesters on how to avoid arrest – Police act to close down anti-authority blog Fitwatch on grounds of ‘criminal’ activities
Paul Lewis, The Guardian, 16th November 2010
More than 70 websites today published guidance to student protesters about avoiding arrest, in defiance of a police ruling that doing so was unlawful.
The anti-police blog Fitwatch was suspended yesterday after detectives from C011, the Metropolitan police’s public order branch, told the company hosting its website that it was “being used to undertake criminal activities”.
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The GDSC supports those protesters who are being criminalised by the British media and state for their just stand against the cuts to our education by the Con-Dem government.
Like the Gaza demonstrators, the students are acting out of a sense of duty to their fellow humans. While the students in this country are not being attacked in the way the people of Gaza were in the war crimes committed against them resulting in 1,500 deaths, many of whom were children, these students are nonetheless defending the right for their younger brothers and sisters to be able to go into higher education.
We wish the student movement all the best, and stand with them in full solidarity and hope that they have all preparations in place for their activism such as legal observers at protests, defence committee set up to defend those criminalised.
GDSC
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On 24 August three more of the people imprisoned for protesting against Israel’s attack on Gaza appealed against their sentences. The Gaza Demonstrators Support Campaign held a demonstration outside the court and supporters filled the public gallery. (Click here for images) Unfortunately, the outcome was only successful for one applicant. Martin Askew and Mohammed Khawaja who were each sentenced to 18 months, were unsuccessful in their appeals, and their sentences remained unchanged. Yunis Benelbaida’s sentence was reduced from 24 months to 18 months.
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The Gaza Demonstrators Support Campaign sends its solidarity to your meeting. It is highly significant that you are raising the topic of the young people imprisoned for protesting in London against Israel’s brutal attack on the people of Gaza at your meeting about the Zionist attack on the Freedom Flotilla. All this is clearly linked. Israel and its international backers are waging war on the people of Palestine and in particular are trying to strangle Gaza by a combination of blockade and starvation on the one hand, and direct massive violence on the other. While obviously this attack is directed overwhelmingly at the Palestinian people themselves, who are resisting heroically, both the attack on the Flotilla and the criminalisation of protesters show that solidarity activists are also under attack and that there is a real need for campaigns to Defend Those who Defend Palestine.
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