Watch footage of police using CS spray against students protesting for education.
Yesterday (Weds Dec 3rd) Warwick students experienced an extraordinary level of police brutality and violence after staging a peaceful protest on their campus in defence of education. The student activists staged sit-in in Senate House, when they were surrounded by police cars and a police riot van. The police reacted with extreme, utterly disproportionate and unprovoked violence: student activists were punched, pushed to the floor, dragged across the floor; also kneed in the face and held by their throat and pushed to the wall. The police then broke through the students’ human chain with the use of CS spray; they threatened them with a taser and it is believed that the taser may have been used, too. In the video that is shared widely of the event, continuous screaming of a female student can be heard as well as shouting by the police for the students to back off. The reports also indicate that there were three arrests and that the activists were taken to the Coventry Central police station.
This is a shocking, disturbing and unprecedented use of force by the police, and the security guards that stormed a University campus and used violent measures to silence protest. We have to join the students in fighting to reclaim our University spaces and ensure we get the police off our campuses. See also tonight’s Guardian report.
This is what you can do to support the arrested students and other student activists violently attacked:
Attend the Protest outside Senate House, Warwick University TODAY, Thurs 4th Dec at 15.30
Write to Nigel Thrift, Warwick VC to condemn today’s actions: vcpa@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Defend the Right to Protest for further support