Cops off campus! National day of student action, 11 December

From the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts

Contact: Daniel Cooper, ULU Vice President, dancooper13@hotmail.com, 07840 136 728

Facebook event for 11 December

In the past month universities across the country have been subject to unprecedented levels of violence from the police, targeting a resurgent wave of activism against the privatisation of the university system.

Across the country, students are initiating a vibrant, popular, winnable fight for democratic and public universities, free from exploitation and repression. We cannot be beaten if we stand together.

In the past week, police have violently evicted, beaten, and arrested students from peaceful occupations in London and sent undercover police officers to spy on students, arresting 3/4s of the union sabbatical team. They have attempted to recruit students to act as informers against fellow student activists in Cambridge, and attacked protests against outsourcing in Sussex. Across the country, managements are using injunctions and violence to suppress dissent; at Birmingham, students were threatened with
£25,000 court costs.

The scale of the police’s response has never been witnessed on British universities. Students beaten, strangled, having teeth punched out, dragged across roads, and violently bundled into vans. This cannot be allowed to continue.

The violence of the police is not just a student or education issue. For years the Metropolitan police have been able to beat, arrest and murder citizens in London with impunity; the IPCC functioning as nothing more than cover for unaccountable, systematic violence.

Groups all over the country are calling for a national day of action on Wednesday December 11th – with local action and a demonstration in London. This event is being set up as a reaction to this call; we are relaying this call for urgent solidarity.

***What is #copsoffcampus?***

We stand for an education that is public and democratic, free for all. Campuses should be places for inquiry, critical thinking and dissent. Across the country, students and workers are fighting for that vision. Students and workers united hold all of the legitimate power. We are the people who give our institutions life and make them function.

The only power that management ultimately has is police and state violence. They can’t win the argument, but they can – and do – call in the cops, assault and intimidate us. With an agenda of austerity, the authorities are behaving in an ever more violent and repressive way.

Our response is to mobilise harder.

Meet at 2pm at the University of London Union (ULU)

If you cannot make it to London on the day, or want to stay local, do something on you campus.

• #copsoffcampus
• Democratic campuses, public education
• Solidarity with staff and the fair pay strikes
• Stop the privatisation of student debt
• Against the police/austerity agenda