Tuesday 20 January 2009

Students occupy at Kings College


This report was just e-mailed to me from the Socialist Students national organiser, and I post it here to share the news.

Despite the ceasefire, a number of students are still protesting on campuses against the war and against universities links to the arms trade. Occupations of lecture halls involving 40-50 students have taken place over the last week at Kings, Birmingham, SOAS, Essex and LSE making similar demands to the occupation at Kings below. Socialist Students has also played a key role in organising protests of hundreds in Bangor and Keele.

Today from 10 am, 40 students have occupied a lecture hall at Kings College in London. Socialist Students society members are present.

The students have made various demands on the university management relating to the recent onslaught by the IDF on Gaza.

These include

  • Immediate withdrawal of the honorary doctorate awarded to Shimon Peres the President of Israel who has led military campaigns in the occupied territories and Lebanon
  • That Kings College disinvests from arms companies supplying the IDF and the arms trade in general
  • That Kings College fully funds the studies of 5 students from Gaza
  • That Kings College makes a donation to organisations carrying out medical aid in Gaza
  • That students involved in the occupation are not victimised and suffer no repercussions
Various lecturers have been invited to speak to the occupying students. Socialist Students is arguing for a student led debate and discussion over the political issues involved in conflicts in the Middle East and for links to be made with campus trade unions in pressuring the university to disinvest in arms companies.


Socialist Students
020 8558 7947
PO Box 858 London E11 1YG
socialiststudents@hotmail.com
http://www.socialiststudents.org.uk/

4 comments:

Vicky said...

Loving all these occupations, but hoping they spread north!

Bent Society said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bent Society said...

I noted the dominance of religion in Obamas inauguration yesterday... religion is at the root of so much of this evil... What would happen were a US president to be an atheist? How could he say "So help me God" at the end of his swearing in? Total madness!

Moving on a bit off topic..

I do apologise for being off topic on this next comment - I promise not to make a habit of it. But we would really like to know what your opinion is regarding our uncovering of bias in the 2009 National Student Survey. Link is here:

http://bentsocietyblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/national-student-survey-scandal.html

Vicky said...

You might want to check out my blog for info on the occupation we're currently staging at Man Met university!