Students begin wave of occupations to back public sector strikes. Police at the student protest over university tuition fees and public sector cuts in London on 9 November, when the Met warned baton rounds could be used. Photograph: Tony Kyriacou/Rex Features Students are planning a wave of campus occupations and protests in the run-up to nationwide strikes next week, the Guardian has learned. Occupations called by the student group National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) ahead of the trade union day of action on 30 November have already happened at Birmingham and Cambridge universities. Higher education minister David Willetts had to abandon a speech on the Idea of University on Tuesday night after students heckled him from the stage and began occupying Cambridge's largest lecture hall. The occupations, in opposition to the government's white paper on education reform, which would formalise the £9,000 rise in tuition fees, are expected to break out across the country.
After sitting on the stage, they eventually forced the minister's departure. Birmingham University gets high court injunction against sit-in protesters | UK news. One of the biggest universities in the UK has obtained a high court injunction that criminalises all occupation-style protests on its 250-acre campus for the next 12 months, the Guardian has learned. After a recent small-scale occupation of an abandoned campus building and a series of protests against rising fees which have resulted in student suspensions and sanctions, University of Birmingham lawyers went to the regional division of the high court two weeks ago and won an order banning "occupational protest action" upon "persons unknown" without prior permission. The court order has caused outrage among students including the president of the National Union of Students who called for the injunction to be immediately abandoned. Birmingham's actions follow a similar move by Sheffield University, which earlier this week agreed to drop its own high court order banning protests without prior permission on campus for a year, after its students' union contested the claim.
Birmingham University protest ban attacked as 'aggressive and censorious' UK human rights groups have condemned one of Britain's biggest universities for "criminalising" sit-in protests, describing the move as worrying, aggressive and censorious. On Thursday it was reported that Birmingham University had obtained a high court injunction banning all occupation-style protests on its 250-acre campus for one year. The injunction prevents "persons unknown" from staging any "occupational-style protest" for 12 months unless they obtain prior written permission from university management. Facing fines, seizure of assets and imprisonment for contempt of court if they break the order, the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts say they are organising students from around the country to protest against the injunction on Brimingham's campus after the Christmas holiday.
The controversial move follows similar action from Sheffield University, which subsequently went back to court to have the order quashed after it faced outrage from its own students earlier this week. 200,000 Quebec students stage massive tuition fee protest - Montreal. More than 20,000 students marched on Premier Jean Charest's Montreal office Thursday, in a massive protest against increases in tuition fees.
The march was part of a larger two-day strike being staged by an estimated 200,000 students across the province. "Students are organizing and they'll be organizing throughout the winter," said Lex Gill, of the Concordia Student Union. "We'll be against these fee hikes until the Charest government freezes tuition. " Students from across Quebec converged on Berri square Thursday afternoon before marching to Charest's office at McGill College Avenue and Sherbooke Street.
The majority of the march was peaceful, but police did arrest two people after objects were allegedly thrown at officers. Earlier in the morning, students blocked entrances at Dawson College in downtown Montreal, allowing teachers and staff to enter through just one door. That entrance was surrounded by a crowd of students holding signs denouncing the province's tuition plans.
#OccupyTorino (@OccupyTorino) sur Twitter. #occupyeverything. *BREAKING* It's believed Shane Calvert was involved in a.