Students Demand Justice

Statement from Leicester University Socialist Students: Thanks to all comrades who have lent their support in the last few days!

A rally was held today in protest at the police presence on campus and the arrest of a student yesterday. This protest was aptly timed with the unveiling of a statue donated to the university which was insured for £600,000! To pay the 10% of staff who are currently underpaid living wage would cost a mere £85,000 per year. This is clearly an ideologically motivated decision to not pay these valuable staff the wage they deserve.

Although a student has been arrested and others have been targeted by police officials we will continue to stand up against this intimidation and campaign for the education we have a right to receive. In conjunction, and due to this, members from Socialist Students will be running as sabbatical officers in the ongoing elections at Leicester. This will provide a valuable platform for our ideas, and an opportunity to forge a truly activist environment in a formerly conservative university. The actual election takes place from the 23rd to the 26th so if any comrades are free to come and support us please get in touch.

It has been confirmed that he has been released and was charged in connection with suspicions arising from an occupation staged at Leicester in December 2013. This is a deliberate attempt by police to behead the student movement, and is a politically motivated arrest. This just shows how police across the country are waging a campaign which is fixated on one-man-management, thus construing that we must be a national organisation run by a single almighty leader.

It is tactics such as this that tell us how afraid they are of the student movement, they fear it! And even more so, they fear the power of students when combined with workers, united in struggle. Their mobilisation of police on campus yesterday was quite shamelessly timed in conjunction with a day of strike regarding pay in higher education.

The police have claimed that they are “bound to facilitate peaceful protest”, I think by now we know that they no longer abide by the rules and have been instructed to destroy the resistance of students to the vicious austerity measures being placed upon them. Their attempts will never succeed.

If they take out one of us, another will rise in their place. The student movement is fluid, and its ideas and consciousness can never be stopped!

Comradely,

Aaron J Elcock
Leicester Socialist Party
Leicester University Socialist Students
Defend Education Leicester