Best practice

Police told schoolboy Nicky Wishart he would be arrested if his picket at David Cameron's office sparked unrest (Photo: Virginia Phelps)

From the Guardian via Fefes Blog

(Article by Shiv Malik, Friday 10 December 2010 17.49 GMT):

"Schoolboy warned by police over picket plan at David Cameron's office

Nicky Wishart, 12, told he faced arrest if public disorder ensued and armed officers would be present

The mother of a 12-year-old boy has criticised Thames Valley police for taking her son out of lessons because he was planning to picket David Cameron's constituency office today.

Nicky Wishart, a pupil at Bartholomew School, Eynsham, Oxfordshire, organised the event on Facebook to highlight the plight of his youth centre, which is due to close in March next year due to budget cuts.

The protest, which was due to take place today, has attracted over 130 people on Facebook, most of whom are who use youth centres in Cameron's constituency, Witney.

Wishart said that after the school was contacted by anti-terrorist officers, he was taken out of his English class on Tuesday afternoon and interviewed by a Thames Valley officer at the school in the presence of his head of year. During the interview, Wishart says that the officer told him that if any public disorder took place at the event he would be held responsible and arrested.

Speaking to the Guardian, Nicky Wishart said: "In my lesson, [a school secretary] came and said my head of year wanted to talk to me. She was in her office with a police officer who wanted to talk to me about the protest. He said, 'if a riot breaks out we will arrest people and if anything happens you will get arrested because you are the organiser'.

"He said even if I didn't turn up I would be arrested and he also said that if David Cameron was in, his armed officers will be there 'so if anything out of line happens ...' and then he stopped."
Wishart, who describes himself as a "maths geek" said he was frightened by the encounter. "I was really scared. Normally I'm a confident speaker but I lost all my confidence. My mum was worried, and I was worried and I didn't know what to do."

Wishart's mother, Virginia Phelps, 41, said: "On Monday I got a phone call in the afternoon at the school from one of the senior staff members, saying, 'we've had the police here, it's to do with the anti-terrorist group, they've taken an interest in something Nicky's posted on FB'.

"I was under the impression that the police would come to the house and speak with us in the evening but I am absolutely fuming that they spoke to him when I wasn't present, especially when I live just 10 minutes from the school."

Speaking about the youth club, Phelps, a mother of three added, "Over the last few months, the kids have been trying to keep the youth club open, raising money by cleaning cars. They've raised £140. Through the club they've been had all sorts of experiences that I couldn't afford to give them myself."

Despite the police visit, Wishart said he would continue with the picket today and he would be delivering a letter to Cameron's staff about the youth centre closure.

A spokeswoman for Thames Valley police said: "We have dedicated officers who work in partnership with all the schools in our area to make sure young people remain in education and in a safe learning environment.

"On Tuesday 7 December, our schools officer for west Oxfordshire attended the school in Eynsham and spoke to a 12-year-old boy in the company of the pupil's head of year, about a planned protest. This was not with the intention of dissuading him from organising it, but to obtain information regarding the protest to ensure his and others' safety. As with any demonstration, we always aim to facilitate a peaceful protest."

The headmaster of Bartholomew school, Andrew Hamilton, refused to give comment saying that it was something that the school was "dealing with internally"."

UK student protests turn into heavy riots, as tuition hike passes in Parliament

9/12/2010 - The UK student protests reached a new climax Thursday with heavy riots around Westminster, as the House of Commons approved plans to increase tution fees for students in England to up to £9,000 per year. The move was carried by 323 votes to 302, which means that the Conservative-Liberal coalition government's notional majority narrowed of 84 to 21. Although all 57 Lib Dem MPs said before the election that they would oppose any rise in tuition fees, 28 of them voted for the hike, while even 6 Tory backbenchers voted no.

The day had begun with new demonstrations and sit-ins throughout Britain followings weeks of nationwide protests, university occupations and direct actions lobbying or targeting MPs. Maybe 25.000 students were marching through central London, repeatedly attempting to break through police lines or rushing down side streets, determined to reach parliament. Although it was announced that protesters would not be allowed into Parliament Square, students surged in, getting close to the House of Commons, while the police began to “kettle” people then tore into them. They started with baton charges then galloped in on horseback (aerial view video), whereby one rider fell from his horse (Video from Sky News)

A live protest map also here

Subsequently students launched themselves at police lines and barriers, and tore down the fencing around the grass in Parliament Square (Video), forcing the police to retreat behind barricades as the Parliament Square and the surrounding streets were finally occupied (see Video roundup , Video). A group of around 150 students, furious at being stopped from joining the protest outside parliament, occupied the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square, others set off to march through central London .

When the Commons' vote finally became known in the early evening, some protesters tried to ram their way through the doors of the Treasury, chanting "One solution, revolution", and started using concrete blocks and metal poles to smash windows of the building on Great George Street while being contained inside the square. Others attacked the Supreme Court or vandalized statues in Westminster Square, including one of Winston Churchill.

Three quarter hours before the attack on the Supreme Court, around 7:15 p.m., Prince Charles and Camilla entered the scene, as if the royal protocol wished to reserve them also a little role in this riot theatre: Their limousine, a 1977 Rolls Royce Phantom VI, was attacked by protesters in Regent Street as they travelled to London Palladium for a Royal Variety Performance. A rear window was smashed and paint bombs were hurled at the vintage car, but the princely couple stayed unharmed (Video, Amateur footage & witnesses). The Duchess of Cornwall tried to brave the situation even with historic sense of mind: “There’s a first time for everything,” she told reporters before the couple drove off in an armored police truck after the performance.

At nearly the same time, around 7:25 p.m, a group of up to 1,000 students were marching down Oxford Street, chanting "General strike now". A branch of Topshop, owned by billionaire Philip Green, who has been targeted for not paying taxes on company dividends in the United Kingdom, was savaged on the way, while bins were overturned and police were attacked on Oxford Street, causing panic among shoppers.

Altogether some 38 protesters and 10 officers have been injured according to official reports. Six officers required hospital treatment and four suffered minor injuries. So far 20 people have been arrested: nine for violent disorder, two for arson, two for assault on police, two for criminal damage, one for being drunk and disorderly and four for burglary.

Meanwhile, a law professor, Ian Grigg-Spall, said he lodged a legal complaint calling for Lib Dem leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to be prosecuted for fraud over the controversial tuition fees under Section 2 of the Fraud Act.

Students lay siege to House of Commons (Socialist Worker Online, UK, with links, timeline etc.)

Britain: the student revolt (In Defense of Marxism, large roundup)

For whom the fee tolls - The Debt Generation fights back, as Parliament votes on fees (SchNEWS, UK, compact story of events)

Police brutally attack protesters as UK parliament backs university fees hike (World Socialist Web Site)

Da Londra: L'avanguardia balla il dubstep (Mercato Occupato, Bari, Italy)

Royal car attacked in protest after MPs' fee vote (BBC, roundup with video)

Tuition fees: government wins narrow victory as protests continue (The Guardian)

Protesters Attack Car Carrying Prince Charles (New York Times)

police/media lies - student protest pics & report (Indymedia London)

London tuition fee protest (Boston Globe, The Big Picture, big-formated photos)

Students smash the police in London (Anorak.co.uk, 66 photos)

Protesters attack royal couple yes! and yes! British students riot in London (Act for Freedom Now, photos)

Prince Charles and Camilla caught up in tuition fees protest violence (Liverpool Daily Post, UK)

Sarah Teather votes for tuition fee hike (Willesden & Brent Times)

UK backs tuition hike amid furore (Al Jazeera)

Cameron condena la violencia de "una minoría" en las protestas estudiantiles (El País, Spain)

Londres: manifestations violentes sur fond de débat parlementaire (Agence France Presse)

Londra: 20mila persone assediano la Camera dei Comuni e assalto all’auto di Carlo e Camilla (La Repubblica, Italy, via Contro l'Informazione Manipulata)

Englische Uni-Reform : Wütende Studenten attackieren Limousine von Prinz Charles (Der Spiegel, Germany)

Studentenproteste: Randalierer greifen Charles und Camilla an (Focus, Germany)

"An Opposition, on coming into power, is often like a speculative merchant whose bills become due. Ministers have to make good their promises, and they find a difficulty in so doing. They have said the state of things is so-and-so, and if you give us the power we will do thus and thus. Of course, something must be done: the speculative merchant cannot forget his bills." (Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution, 1867, Chapter V)

"The House of Commons is thronged with people who get there merely for 'social purposes', as the phrase goes; that is, that they and their families may go to parties else impossible." (Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution, 1867, Chapter II).

"In all cases it must be remembered that a political combination of the lower classes, as such and for their own objects, is an evil of the first magnitude; that a permanent combination of them would make them (now that so many of them have the suffrage) supreme in the country; and that their supremacy, in the state they now are, means the supremacy of ignorance over instruction, and of numbers over knowledge. So long as they are not taught to act together, there is a chance of this being averted, and it can only be averted by the greatest wisdom and the greatest foresight of the higher classes." (Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution, Introduction to 2nd ed., 1872)

Photo No. 2: The Open Society and Its Enemies: Liberal Democrats Party Leader Nick Clegg and Vince Cable on 11th April 2010 as they put the finishing touches to the Liberal Democrats party election manifesto at Mr Clegg's Putney home.

UK: Bank occupations and school sleep-ins ahead of Commons' fee vote

8/12/2010 - Pupils at some London schools say they will sleep in school to protest against plans to triple tuition fees in England and cut university funding. At the same time, there have been several demonstrations across England and Scotland in the build-up to Thursday's Commons' vote on the controversial plans. Occupations have been continuing at about 20 universities, including Exeter and Leeds - where protestors have squatted now also a branch of Santander Bank on the campus (see Youtube video below).

In Dundee, a group of protesters broke away from the demonstration and entered the nearby Royal Bank of Scotland branch in High Street to continue their action. They blocked customers coming in and out of the bank and waved anti-capitalism banners. In London, a flash "teach-in" demonstration was held by protestors at Euston Station. Earlier, a group dressed as suffragettes demonstrated outside the constituency offices of Lib Dem minister Lynne Featherstone in north London, while the Education minister Sarah Teather, when asked by Sky News about her vote, lost stante pede all her oratorial soft skills and preferred to run away... (Video here).

Pupils stage university tuition fee rise occupations (BBC, today's roundup)

Students Stage Protests Ahead Of Fees Vote (Sky News, roundup)

Student protests – live coverage (The Guardian)

Students storm Royal Bank of Scotland in protest over fees (NEWS.Scotsman.com)

Clegg cast as panto villain as Durham students make their voices heard (The Northern Echo)

VIDEO: Falmouth students march through the streets (Falmouth People)

Generation X2

See also the commentary of Edward Fullbrook on the Real-World Economics Review Blog

This is just the beginning

November 30th: The day when the Camera dei deputati voted the Law Gelmini, the city of Bologna, home of the oldest university of Europe, lived to see like many other Italian cities a veritable student & pupil revolt. Urban blockades and demonstrations paralyzed the city, then the protest march blocked the motorway for over an hour. Finally at the train station, another possible target for blockades, a long phalanx of Police and Carabinieri in riot-gear attacked the crowd and fired tear gas on the march. After around twenty minutes of extremely high tension, the march restarted to block Via Rizzoli and Via Zamboni, before returning to the Faculty of Arts where a meeting was held at six o’clock.

This is today’s English leader from the website Uniriot.org, written by Paolo Do, Rome, which gives a roundup of the Italian events on Tuesday 30th November:

“It is just the beginning !

These days the crisis of the Italian government, that is living an agony since the last two months, was spread over the country: students’ protests, occupations everywhere are unfolding the political crisis. We are facing a multiplication of its dimensions, of its temporalities.
From the «book block» to the occupation of rail stations, airport, port, cities, the Italian student movement is experimenting an original temporality of the crisis: it is a non-linear time, that is a new starting point of resistance against the European austerity.

For the first time hundred of student from high school are beside the university’s student composing a new subject, a new political event.

The clinamen of the 30 of November, as well as of the event at the Milbank tower in London few weeks ago, are fed with the anger of a new generation, their desire and collective organization.
Yesterday Italy was completely blocked by demonstrations that closed motorways, like in Bologna and Turin, where the mobility was blocked for hours.

Here Bologna

Here Turin

In Rome students clashed violently with police several time to reach the Parliament, and then blocked the city centre and the main railway station:

Here the clash at the Roma downtown

Here

Here the occupation of Termini

The day of 30 November shows us a new kind of protest beyond the rituality: in all over the country the student movement is facing the attempt to organize strikes blocking the mobility and fluidity of the metropolis, its hubs and centre of logistic.

Here the clash at the rail station of Bologna

Here Pavia

Up to today, many universities are still occupied. General assemblies and meetings are going all over the cities despite yesterday the reform was passed to the Parliament. The next step for this law will be the discussion at the Senate house by 14 of December. But the government probably will not have enough time: we will topple them before: yes, it is just the beginning!"

See also

Movement, learning: a few reflections on the exciting UK winter 2010 (by Manuela Zechner, London, on Uniriot.org)

Against the reform, another revolt! Updates on student protests in Italy (Italy Calling via Libcom)

and the sites Atenei in revolt and Italy Calling

Che fare ? What is to be Done ?

Walk out of school and college. Take action in workplaces. Lay siege to parliament.

If everyone gets behind the student revolt then this government can be beaten over the rise in university tuition fees to £9,000 a year. School, college and university students are on the streets, millions of others support them, and government ministers are in a spin.

Liberal Democrat ministers were this week debating whether or not to vote for the policy they had shaped in the cabinet! If the fees are beaten then it will make it much easier to fight other attacks such as the abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance that hundreds of thousands of young people rely on.

And it will boost all of us in the battle against this vicious Tory-Lib Dem coalition.

The central date for us all is the day when the fees are voted on by MPs in parliament.

That is scheduled to take place at some time before Christmas. On that day, everyone—student, worker, pensioner, unemployed—should be part of the movement.

Protest, lay siege to Parliament, send a delegation from work to the demonstration, walkout if you can.

Trade union leaders must back the calls for action, as the UCU lecturers’ union already has. The Tories and the lickspittle Liberals are out to wreck our lives. Let’s sink them.

Socialist Worker Online, UK

The claims of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and other middle class “left” organisations that building up "direct action" and merely getting larger numbers onto the streets is an adequate strategy for defeating the cuts must be rejected.

Placing all the emphasis on greater protest activity by the students is the means by which the SWP cynically attempts to cover up the complicity of the Labour and trade union bureaucracy with the imposition of the cuts and divert students away from a political struggle against those elements. Especially under conditions in which the state is preparing more severe repression against protests, this would mean leaving the students to fight alone, to be picked off by the police and worn down.

Young people cannot look to disaffected Liberals, the Labour Party or the trade unions to fight back against the efforts to impose the global economic crisis on the backs of working people. They are not a solution to the problem, they are part of it.

Students and youth must make a conscious political turn towards the working class. This is the opposite of the orientation to the Trades Union Congress proposed by the SWP and others. It means linking up with all sections of workers facing cuts in their jobs, wages and living standards through the building of rank-and-file committees in a rebellion against the trade unions. The fight against austerity must be based in a struggle against the capitalist profit system, for the bringing down of the coalition government and for a workers’ government based on socialist policies.

International Students for Social Equality, UK

Picture to yourselves a popular uprising.

Probably everyone will now agree that we must think of this and prepare for it. But how? Surely the Central Committee cannot appoint agents to all localities for the purpose of preparing the uprising. Even if we had a Central Committee, it could achieve absolutely nothing by such appointments under present-day Russian conditions. But a network of agents that would form in the course of establishing and distributing the common newspaper would not have to “sit about and wait” for the call for an uprising, but could carry on the regular activity that would guarantee the highest probability of success in the event of an uprising. Such activity would strengthen our contacts with the broadest strata of the working masses and with all social strata that are discontented with the autocracy, which is of such importance for an uprising. Precisely such activity would serve to cultivate the ability to estimate correctly the general political situation and, consequently, the ability to select the proper moment for an uprising. Precisely such activity would train all local organisations to respond simultaneously to the same political questions, incidents, and events that agitate the whole of Russia and to react to such “incidents” in the most vigorous, uniform, and expedient manner possible; for an uprising is in essence the most vigorous, most uniform, and most expedient “answer” of the entire people to the government. Lastly, it is precisely such activity that would train all revolutionary organisations throughout Russia to maintain the most continuous, and at the same time the most secret, contacts with one another, thus creating real Party unity; for without such contacts it will be impossible collectively to discuss’ the plan for the uprising and to take the necessary preparatory measures on the eve, measures that must be kept in the strictest secrecy.

In a word, the “plan for an all-Russia political newspaper”, far from representing the fruits of the labour of armchair workers, infected with dogmatism and bookishness (as it seemed to those who gave but little thought to it), is the most practical plan for immediate and all-round preparation of the uprising, with, at the same time, no loss of sight for a moment of the pressing day-to-day work …

Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without, that is, only from outside the economic struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between workers and employers. The sphere from which alone it is possible to obtain this knowledge is the sphere of relationships of all classes and strata to the state and the government, the sphere of the interrelations between all classes.

Lenin, What is to be Done ?(1901)

London protesters come here face to face with Metropolitan Police after a new day of marching against the planned university tuition fee increases. Police said 146 demonstrators were arrested after a group of protesters refused to leave Trafalgar Square at the end of the demonstration. There were also ten arrests in Bristol. At least the British Liberal Democrats seem to have come now politically under pressure and mull abstaining in the parliamentary vote on tuition fees, while the Government in Wales decided to spare Welsh students from a rise in tuition fees. (Photo: Reuters)

See

Europeans stage anti-austerity protest (Reuters via ZCommunications.org)

Ddl Gelmini, proteste in tutta Italia La Camera approva la riforma (La Repubblica, Italy, chronology of events)

30 novembre 2010 - Diretta sms - contro il ddl, scontri e blocchi stradali, occupate decine di stazioni, la rivoltà dell'università contro il governo (Uniriot Network, Italy, chronology)

Rolling coverage of student protests on Day X2 (Socialist Worker Online, UK, chronology)

Budget cuts stir protest in Italy, UK (Wall Street Journal Europe)

Protests against tuition fees strain coalition (Reuters UK)

'Non-students to blame for trouble' (The Evening Post, Bristol, UK)

Punished for being English: Welsh students join Scots in being spared tuition fees rise (Daily Mail, UK)

Violent scenes at a London townhall meeting, as UK braces for more student protests

29/11/2010 - While British students prepared for their third and biggest education cuts protest day (on Tuesday 30th November), there was fracas and fury in a Southeast London borough, Lewisham, where around 400 protesters tried to force their way into a local council meeting which was to decide about spending cuts. We document here the article from the "Socialist Worker Online" about this event:

"Riot police attack protesters at Lewisham Town Hall

Around 400 people rallied outside Lewisham town hall this evening against plans by the Labour run council to make £60 million cuts. The protest, organised by Lewisham Anti-Cuts Alliance, was boosted by a large feeder march of university students from Goldsmiths College.

After a rally many people rushed into the town hall to voice opposition to the cuts. Around 100 protesters managed to get in.

Police then attacked the protesters with horses, dogs, riot shields and truncheons.

One eyewitness, an NUT (National Union of Teachers) member, told Socialist Worker, “The police were like animals. The beat people with their truncheons and even attacked a 72 year old pensioner.”

A student at Goldsmiths, told Socialist Worker, “We marched down from the college and people joined us. We recognise the need to demand not just a future for students but for everyone.”

“Then they denied us access to the town hall and police attacked us, grabbing people by the hair and the neck.”

“It shows how little democracy there really is.”"

See also

Photos of the anti-cuts protest in Lewisham (Socialist Worker Online, UK)

Fracas and fury as Labour Lewisham approves cuts package (The Guardian, UK)

Students plan third and biggest education cuts protest (The Guardian, UK)

Day X2 - Next wave of student protests (Anticuts.org, UK, schedule of planned actions)

Student Protests Test U.K. Coalition Government (Wall Street Journal, New York)

Police warn students against violence (Reuters, UK)

Central Websites with updates about ongoing protests are

Anti Cuts Protest - Publicising Resistance To Tory Cuts

FeesProtest.com (lists & map of protest mini-sites, twitter feeds)

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/

UK and Italy again rocked by militant student protests - Portugal shut down by historic mass strike (video update Italy)

BBC reports here live from today's Student Protest in the United Kingdom. This afternoon police were kettling in thousands of student protesters who were trying to force their way into the Parlament Square in central London (the same scenes here in a very impressive video, turned on the ground, with a lot of "free speech" from pupils & students). Occupations, teach-ins and walkouts have been reported throughout the country, upon which the new center-right government of David Cameron tries to impose higher university fees and all sorts of cuts. There were violent skirmishes in London going on until night.

Occupations and walkouts across the UK against cuts (Indymedia UK)

Day X live coverage of student protests across Britain (Chronology of events from Socialist Worker, UK)

Day X: Student protests in pictures (Socialist Worker)

Pictures from Leeds student protest by Charlotte Groves (Socialist Worker)

British Students Leave Classes Over Cuts (New York Times, with photos)

More Violence Erupts At Student Protests (Sky News, UK, with several videos & photos)

Tuition fee protests turn into a riot again (Belfast Telegraph)

Student tuition fee protesters dispersed by police (BBC)

Fees demo brings chaos to streets (Harrow Observer, West London)

Student protests: School's out across the UK as children take to the streets (The Guardian, UK, with video)

Interview with an anarchist student occupier at Sheffield University (The Fargate Speaker via Libcom, UK)

Student protests: Wagner's a riot for revoltings students (Daily Star, UK)

Student protests turn ugly (ITNews Video, UK, from Youtube)

Des milliers d'étudiants manifestent à Londres (Le Figaro, France)

Handgemenge bei Studentenprotesten in London (Reuters Video via FAZ, Germany)

From Xinhua News Agency / People's Daily Online, China:

"University students on Wednesday assaulted the Italian Senate to protest against the new education reform, while hundreds of other students clashed with the police across the country.

Over 2,000 students marched up to the Senate, forced the entrance door and threw tear gases, eggs and stones at the windows, as state TV Rai reported. Police intervened to push back the students out of the parliament. Eight cops have been injured in the riots, while several students either swooned or were harmed.

Rome was blocked in a total chaos for nearly the entire day. Other groups of students staged dramatic happenings and flash mobs in front of the House, wearing ropes around their hands and necks yelling the slogan: "The government is strangling us but we will set ourselves free from its tyranny."

The students called for the government's resignation, especially that of Education Minister Maria Stella Gelmini, condemning the cuts in the education budget and the new reform aimed at increasing merit and the role of private universities.

The student blitz is the first in its kind in recent Italian history against an institutional body, quite symbolic of the current political turmoil the government is facing and the threat of an early vote.

Other students occupied Rome's central La Sapienza University, climbing on the roof of the building and shouting at who ever tried to reach them. The only MP who climbed on the roof with them in sign of solidarity was the leading opposition party secretary Pierluigi Bersani, who exploited the youth dissent in view of a government fall.

In other Italian cities, students and young researchers occupied universities, schools and institutes. In the town of Siena railways tracks were blocked for several hours in sign of protest, causing the cancellation of trains and blocking the station for hours. Also foreign students took part in the mass demonstrations.

The climate of social tensions is thus degenerating. Last time students staged such extreme mass protests was in the 1970's at the time of the global student mobilization phase."

See also

Pisa students occupy the local airport (Youtube)

Student protests in Italy against education cuts (World Socialist Web Site)

For more actual informations, see the Uniriot.org Site. Italy

Proved excellent since Roman times: the testudo or tortoise formation (Schildkrötenpanzer-Taktik)

(from Der Standard, Austria)

The Portuguese staged a massive general strike Wednesday in protest against spending cuts. It was the first joint general strike of Portugal’s two biggest unions since 1988. Like Greece, Italy, Ireland, Spain and other states, the country has recently become the target and victim of the financial markets, that is to say banks, speculators and neoliberal international institutions (European Union, European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund).

Strike paralyses Portugal, angry student protest in UK (Nine O'Clock, Romania)

Unions bring Portugal to a grinding halt as Irish-style bailout looms (The Guardian, UK)

Portuguese on general strike against austerity (Reuters via Arab News)

Portugal shut down by general strike (Libcom, UK)

Como a greve geral está a afectar o país (Jornal de negocios, Portugal, with photos)

Spain, Portugal in line for bail-out ? (AP via St. Petersburg Times, Florida)

Fears Mount Over Spain, and Risks to the Euro (New York Times)

Students protesting today during a rally on Leeds University campus, UK

(Photo by Charlotte Groves)

International Students' Day: Greece, Italy and Beyond

17th November 2010: Protest March of Pupils and Students in Rome, Italy

On the eve of today’s little known World Philosophy day (which this year coincided with the official closing of the world's biggest religious event, the Islamic Hajj, the annual pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca), yesterday's International Student's Day was celebrated worldwide in at least a dozen countries with political manifestations, marches and other actions. Fidel Castro honoured this day with a long speech to the Cuban youth, and so did the Speaker of the Armenian National Assembly with a congratulary address to the students of his country. At Osmania University at Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh, India), the de facto headquarters of the Telangana movement, which fights for an independant Federal Indian State, riots and clashes with Special Police units erupted late on Thursday after a protest rallye. At least 20-30 students are believed to have sustained serious injuries. In Europe, nationwide and high-spirited protests took place in Italy and Greece, where the demonstrations of Wednesday were also - as in Hyderabad - marked by a particular national agenda.

This is especially true for austerity-ridden Greece, commemorating on this 17th november traditionally the bloody 1973 anti-dictatorship uprising (which ringed in the end of the then military junta). Here several ten thousands students and teachers, workers and pensioners marched through central Athens, while another 12,000 protesters joined a rally in Thessaloniki. This year the focus of protesters’ anger was Greece’s international creditors: the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Activists said, the Athens march was the most intense and populous demonstration the Greek capital has seen since May 5th. It was accompanied by battles of youths with the police (which went on until late in the night), but also by clashes between activists and the youth branch of PASOK, the social-democratic party in power (here a video from Thessaloniki). 48 protesters were detained according to official statements. Police also reported clashes in the southern city of Patras.

In Berlusconi-plagued Italy around 200,000 young people in 100 towns and cities took part in the forceful protests against austerity cuts and the privatisation of education, leading to rail occupations or traffic jams and bus and train cancellations in many of them. The Milan city council said the demonstration there had been marred by vandalism, with graffiti scrawled on walls, shop windows smashed and trash strewn across streets. There are also reports about activists squatting university spaces or schools (and these occupations seem still going on).

Osmania university erupts again over Hyderabad’s free zone status (Daily News & Analysis, India)

Violence again near Osmania University campus in Hyderabad, India (The Hindu)

Students protest at Osmania University (Press Trust of India via NDTV)

Students protest cutbacks in school system (Iceland Review)

It's International Students day! (Jamaica Observer)

Students planning to step up protests at tuition fees (Camden New Journal, London)

National Students Protests Wednesday 24th November (Indymedia UK)

Statement of Solidarity from Greece for U.K. students (Void Network via Anarchist News)

Greeks march to mark 1973 revolt, protest austerity (Reuters, with Photos )

Greek Riots; Protesters Clash With Police At 1973 Uprising Anniversary March (AP & The Huffington Post, with Photo Gallery)

"The IMF is not an image on your TV screen”: report from tonight’s demo in Athens (Indymedia Athens via From the Greek Streets)

Athens Polizei gewinnt 17. Riot (Indymedia Germany)




Vandalism, disruption as students protest cuts, reforms - Associations say 200,000 took part in nationwide demos (ANSA)

Italian students protest reform, budget cuts (AFP via Gulf Times)

Scuola, tagli e riforme: in 200 mila per dire no (Indymedia Piemonte)

Gli studenti invadono Milano: 17 Novembre verso Lo Sciopero Generale (Indymedia Lombardia)

Manifestazioni in tutta Italia: Scuola scende in piazza, cori contro Berlusconi - Fumogeni a Montecitorio (Corriere della sera - Picture Gallery)

17 novembre: una nave pirata nel mare normalizzato del movimento studentesco (CSOA Mercato Occupato Bari)

Hundert Demonstrationen in ganz Italien gegen Bildungsreform (DPA / Europe Online)

Bozen: "No Gelmini Day" - 500 Schüler demonstrieren (Südtirol News)

Global Wave of Action for Education Hildesheim (Indymedia Germany)

Schulstreik 17. 11. Osnabrück - Bilder (Indymedia Germany)

Berlin: Rave der Bildungsleichen (Indymedia Germany)

Bildungsstreik 2010 - Make Party ???? (Radio Dreyeckland)

Commemoration and Protest: 1973 Uprising Anniversary March in Athens, Greece (17th november 2010)

British Students Protest Massively Against Cuts and Storm the Tory Headquarter

London, 10 November, in early afternoon: Out of a protest march of more than 50.000 people, students and activists with red-and-black flags have boarded the rooftop of Millbank Tower, the headquarter of the ruling Conservative Party

(see Videos from Daily Telegraph & BBC - Video from Russia Today - German Videos from AP & Reuters)

Tens of thousands of students and lecturers marching on parliament - Chronology of the events until 16:30 (Socialist Worker)

2010 student protest in London (Wikipedia - Speed Record !!!)

Students smash Tory headquarters (Indymedia UK via Libcom)

Inside the Millbank Tower Riots (New Statesman)

Fury about more than tuition fees (The Independent)

Student riot marks end of Coalition's era of consensus (The Independent)

London tuition hike protests turn violent (New York Times)

Student protests create an Edgar Allan Poe moment (The Guardian)

Update from occupied Tory Headquarter (Indymedia UK, 18:43)

Parliament square occupied - Free University open (Indymedia London, 20:34)

PLEASE SIGN: Statement of solidarity with students arrested at Millbank (Indymedia UK)

View from the rooftop of Millbank Tower

Photos: Indymedia UK

Students in revolt in Sussex and Aberdeen

From The Socialist Worker (by Siân Ruddick):

"More than 50 students at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland are occupying administration offices at their university.They are demanding that their principal issues a statement condemning all cuts in education.

The students join those at the University of Sussex, who have entered their seventh day in occupation against cuts and in defence of victimised students. Their campaign is going from strength to strength. More than 800 students crammed into a student union general meeting today, Wednesday. They voted unanimously for a vote of no confidence in the vice chancellor, Professor Michael Farthing. They also voted for a motion to lift the university’s ban on students who took part in a previous occupation.

Farthing should be worried. Not only is the student movement growing, Sussex lecturers are set to strike tomorrow against the planned cuts. Vice chancellors who thought they would get an easy ride making cuts should think again."

Aberdeen Facebook

http://defendsussex.wordpress.com/

http://conventionagainstfeesandcuts.wordpress.com/