Plymouth Victory!

After four days of occupation, Plymouth University Occupation has announced victory. Check out their statement on their blog at http://plymouthunioccupation.blogspot.com/

The following has been agreed to by the university:

- The University of Plymouth will set up a humanitarian scholarships scheme, for students that for reasons of war, natural disaster or other calamity, are unable to continue to study at their home university. This will be a yearly recurring scheme, and the first 6 scholarships will be offered specifically to students of University of Gaza for the next academic year.

- The University of Plymouth will work with the other 30+ occupied universities to send aid and surplus materials to Gaza as a collective.

- Delegates from the occupation along with members of the Students' Union will put forward their case for an ethical investment plan (something that the University of Plymouth currently does not have) in six weeks time. This will include ending links with BAE Systems and an on-campus boycott of Israeli goods.

- There will be no legal, financial, or academic measures taken against anyone involved in or supporting the occupation.

Congratulations to Plymouth! We wish you all the best in solidarity in the ongoing movement. We also continue our solidarity with the students still in occupation at Byam Shaw, UEL, and Manchester, the last of which is the longest running student occupation at 23 days! Follow their blogs by clicking on their links at the right, under "Solidarity."

Call to Action: solidarity with arrested Jayyous students

Please circulate widely.

Week of action in solidarity with the arrested students of Jayyous
2nd- 9th March

On February 18th 2009 in the early hours of the morning, Occupation forces rampaged through the West Bank village of Jayyous conducting violent house to house raids and carrying out mass arrests totalling over 50 students and nearly the entire youth committee of Stop the Wall Campaign.

For months the youth movement in Jayyous had made it one of the most active villages in the West Bank , embodying a strained resistance against occupation and the wall which will carve through village land destroying hundreds of olive trees and cutting the village off from many of its primary water supplies.

The students of Jayyous have called for IMMEDIATE BOYCOTT AND DIVESTMENT action in response to the incursion.

The students of the University of Sussex stand in solidarity with those in Jayyous and appeal to the wider student body to join us next week in a week of action against Israel ’s attacks on the basic human rights of those students in Jayyouss who dared to express dissent.

It is crucial that we recognise the severity of this event and draw wider attention to it as an example of the crimes on humanity that Palestinians experience every day.

In solidarity,

Sussex .

Cardiff University Occupied!

Today Cardiff university became the 28th UK university to occupy, and the first occupation in Wales!

A student from the occupation said:

"I am ashamed that Cardiff University is helping fund the horrific violence in Gaza the consequence of which is the obliteration of education infrastructure in another, poorer part of the world. I don’t want the money I pay for my education contributing to the destruction of someone else’s. Our thoughts from the occupation are with the people of Gaza, who have lost so much.”

Please send messages of support to cardiffstudentsagainstwar@gmail.com copying in VC FarnhamS@Cardiff.ac.uk.

Meetings this week and national news

There has been a bit of difficulty in scheduling the meeting dates this week as there are too many other events going on! So we have decided for this week only to have two meetings for whoever can make either one...

One TODAY (Tues), meet 6pm Falmer Common Room - we will be organising Thursday's events in library square among other things.

One on THURSDAY at 4pm, for one hour, meet FCH.

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Occupation news:

18 NYU students have been suspended following the occupation which ended on Thursday. Please check www.takebacknyu.com to see how you can support them.

Congratulations to UWE who won their occupation a couple of days ago.

Solidarity to Plymouth and the University of the Arts, London became the latest universities to occupy yesterday.

St Andrews, UEL and Manchester continue to occupy, with Manchester now in their third week of occupations!

Check occupations.org.uk for news...

NYU Occupation Ends With Expulsions and Violence, St. Andrews and Manchester Still Going

The NYU Occupation has ended under outrageous circumstances. Participating students were evicted from their residences, while a few who were occupying the building were offered negotiations, then were instead taken away by security guards and served with explusion papers. No negotiations took place.

To complain about the underhanded quelling of this peaceful protest:
Contact NYU Housing to complain about student evictions:
Phone: 212-998-4600
email: housing@nyu.edu

Here is a short YouTube video covering the NYU Occupation, and here is a video where rallying students clashed with the police.

The Occupation has also put up a beautifully written statement on their website, which ends with the one word that perfectly encapsulates the sentiment of Take Back NYU!, as well as all the student occupations happening around the world: "Onward." Glad to hear it, and solidarity to everyone involved!

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The St. Andrews Occupation is going strong, having had what sounds like a friendly meeting with the Principal. Unfortunately, more negotiating will have to happen next week before a resolution will be reached, but at least the management seems keen to have a proper negotiation with the students of the occupation, which is more than can be said about too many of the other university managers.

Keep up to date with the St. Andrews Occupation at their blog.

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At 18 days, the Manchester Occupation is the longest-running of these student occupations so far. The management continues to ignore the demands of the occupying students, but as it can be read on their blog, the students are nowhere near giving up. They have called out for a demo to support the student occupation, to demand that the Chancellor listens to them, and to support the people of Gaza:

“Now 2 weeks on, University of Manchester students have occupied key buildings in the heart of the campus. The occupation has seen an unprecedented amount of support from students and academics alike most notably in an emergency general meeting in which over a thousand students attended to overwhelmingly support a motion to stand in solidarity with the people of Gaza. Entering their 18th day, the occupation is still strong in both numbers and spirit. The next focus is to pressure the university administration to accede to our reasonable demands but the arrogant and uncomprimising Vice Chancellor (send complaints to president@manchester.ac.uk) has failed to make any concessions for the student body claiming that the university cannot take a political position. But given the universities unethical investments in the arms trade, such an action is a political position. Notorious for his history at Melbourne University, he refused to engage in an open and just dialogue with the students of the occupation even threatening to take away the right to protest!
A DEMONSTRATION HAS BEEN CALLED TO DEMAND THE CHANCELLOR LISTEN TO US: FOR THE STUDENTS, FOR GAZA!”
** THE DEMO STARTS AT **
** MARCH 4TH 2PM @ MANCHESTER STUDENTS UNION **

Solidarity to the Manchester Occupation! Their spirit and dedication is an inspiration to all of us here at Sussex.

Urgent meeting today and NYU occupation update

There is an urgent meeting today at 5pm in Falmer Common room to brainstorm how we can support the students of Jayyous, Palestine who were arrested on Wednesday when Israeli troops stormed their village. See www.stopthewall.org for details.

NYU management have begun negotiating with the occupation. Hundreds of supporters are outside on the streets, singing, dancing and resisting police, with 30-40 having stormed the 3rd floor of the occupied Kimmel building to join protestors inside. They say:

"This is for the students who work three jobs to attend the school of their dreams. This is for the students in Gaza, whose university is destroyed and can no longer study. This is for workers in Abu Dhabi building our facilities with no human rights to speak of. We are a global university and our actions are connected to world events, whether we like it or not. It is our responsibility. We have voices. Let’s use them."

NYU and UWE occupations! And a couple of other things...

We were all super excited to hear today that New York University has become the second university stateside (after Rochester got all their demands met within a day) to go into occupation with students barricading themselves inside a dining hall. The occupation was initiated by the Take Back NYU! coalition and along with demands for 13 scholarships for Palestinian students and the donation of surplus resources, incorporates broader demands designed to increase democracy, accountability and
student participation in the governance of the university. They
say:

"We apologize for inconveniencing the loyal lunchgoers of the Kimmel Marketplace, but we are not sorry for causing a disruption! Established channels have been insufficient to make our voices heard by the administration, and we have waited too long to be taken seriously. By disrupting the University’s functioning now, we are forcing the administration to deal with those people it depends upon the most—we, the students!"

We really hope that this will be the inspiration and the precedent for a new wave of similar student actions across the atlantic, and wish them serious success.

It seems that the initiative to take action via occupations is also spreading to other demands and issues, as Byam Shaw People's University in central London went into occupation yesterday over recent structural changes and managerial decisions that have seen the institution stripped of its independence, courses scrapped and staff made redundant. A couple of weeks ago workers at Waterford Crystal took over the running of their factory as the management tried to covertly close the plant down on a weekend. We welcome this resurgence in student and worker self-organised action, and with the NUS along with other national unions and the government still ignoring the needs and demands of those they claim to represent to pursue their own agendas we're expecting more to come...

Also back on these shores the University of Western England has become the latest to go into occupation in solidarity with Gaza showing that just because the atrocities are no longer making the evening headlines doesn't mean that we're not watching! They say:

This is following the recent atrocities that have and continue to take place in the Gaza Strip & occupation of the West Bank. We as students ourselves wish to offer our unity and support to our fellow students in the region during these hard times. We have proposed a set of demands of the University including scholarships for Palestinian students, a boycotting of Israeli goods, support for fundraising for DEC, and a condemnation of Israeli Actions in the region.

Good luck and solidarity guys.

Responses are slowly starting to drift in from all the letter writing done during the occupation. Today we received back a letter and what can only be described as a reading pack from our local MP David Lepper. He says he is a member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, however, he says he cannot sign the Early Day Motion in parliament which expresses support for the student occupations because he does not know what the 'aims of the recent occupation at Sussex were'. We would have thought that perhaps as an MP he would be aware of the national wave of occupations and of other such popular actions in his constituency, but we will nonetheless be writing back to inform him! A response was also received last week from the BBC who perplexingly cited not "compromising public confidence in the BBC's impartiality" in covering stories "where issues of responsibility for civilian suffering and distress are intrinsic to the story and remain highly contentious" and "a fragile ceasefire and sporadic border access" as justification for their refusal to broadcast the DEC humanitarian aid appeal. We were assured that "In the meantime your complaint has been registered on our audience log."

The minutes from yesterday's meeting can be found in the occupation gmail account. Tomorrow there will be a meeting of the Boycott and Divestment working group at 12pm (meet Falmer Common Room) - they have had lots of success in their research and will be planning the next steps. Next week's organisational meeting will take place on Tuesday at 6:00pm so as not to clash with the Free Education demo in London. Please come down and get involved! Meet in Falmer Common Room.