London, Jan 22, IRNA — Students have staged a series of protests on university campuses across the UK against Israel’s slaughter of more than 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza.
Sit-ins have included three London universities, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the London School of Economics (LSE) and King’s College, as well as in Essex, eastern England, Sussex in the south and Birmingham in the midlands.
At King’s, more than 100 student occupied a lecture theatre on Wednesday, calling for the university to formally condemn Israel and also demanded that an honorary doctorate bestowed on the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, last November be rescinded.
“We stand in solidarity with the people of Gaza and refuse to let our university, one which we are very proud of being a part of, award a doctorate to a man who has not only been an advocate of the recent brutality in Gaza, but also a protagonist in the history of bloodshed that has scarred the Middle East,” the students said in a statement.
“It is important to note that there have not been university occupations like this since the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s,” the statement added.
“It’s disgraceful that Shimon Peres was given an honorary doctorate. None of us think that can be done in our name,” said Erin O’Byrne, a first-year law student.
“There’s usually a lot of apathy among students especially in King’s, which is quite conservative, but the humanitarian crisis in December pushed people into doing something now,” O’Byrne told the Guardian newspaper.
The protesters also said that they wanted King’s and its vice-chancellor, Rick Trainor, to provide five fully funded scholarships for Palestinian students, help organise a fundraising day, establish links with institutions in Gaza, and donate any surplus educational resources to them.
A spokeswoman said although the university’s senior officers understood the reason behind the protest, it would make no formal statement, but concurred with a statement made by Trainor on behalf of the vice-chancellors’ group, Universities UK (UUK).
“UUK supports calls for an end to the conflict in and beyond Gaza. We are particularly aware that many of the civilian casualties have occurred in educational establishments,” said
Trainor, the UUK’s president.
“The UK’s universities are resolutely committed to the right to education, enshrined in the UN universal declaration of human rights. Higher education, in particular, is a global activity and we value our academic links with universities all over the world,” he said.
Over the last week, students have called for the cancellation of a series of lectures to mark the centenary of Tel Aviv organised by Colin Shindler, the UK’s first professor of Israeli politics.
Students at the LSE, have also staged protests against the refusal to the authorities at the university to issue a statement condemning Israel.