In the wake of the attack by Hamas on Israel on 7 October last year, people throughout the world have come out in protest at the actions of Hamas and at Israel’s response to the attack. There have been widespread calls for a ceasefire and for the return of hostages taken by Hamas.
The attack on Israel by Hamas resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel’s retaliation has killed more than 30,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and injured tens of thousands more, according to the territory’s health ministry. The current Israeli offensive against Hamas forces in Rafah is destroying the last remaining city in Gaza, a city that is sheltering a million Palestinians, displaced from elsewhere in the country. The International Criminal Court has applied for arrest warrants for the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, and the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, for war crimes.
Since 7 October, incidents of both anti-Semitic and anti-Islam hate crime have sky-rocketed. There has been concern the protests have been used as cover for racist hate crimes against Jews and Muslims. It is worth reiterating however, that the vast majority of protestors have been peaceful and law-abiding.
Student protests on campus
University students across the world have staged protests. In the US, the demonstrations are being compared to the campus protests against the Vietnam war in the 1960s and 70s.
Whenever and wherever student protestors assemble, authorities move in to remove them. This has happened most prominently in New York and California where police in riot gear and tactical vehicles have cleared encampments and made thousands of arrests.
In the UK, the government’s attitude towards protest and free speech on university campuses is difficult to make sense of.
On the one hand, members of the government claim loudly to abhor cancel culture and insist that everyone’s views must be heard. On the other hand, a government minister (and one of the founders of Britain Uncancelled) recently insisted that civil servants should be compelled to wear standard-issue lanyards. She regards the wearing of lanyards in colours that signify support for minority groups as “symbolic of left-wing bias”.
This government has passed legislation specifically protecting free speech in universities. At the same time, it consistently paints universities as strongholds of radical socialism, full of lefty lecturers, brainwashing our young people with leftist propaganda.
In 2022, the government made wide-ranging changes across the criminal justice system which have had a significant impact on our right to protest.
The way through these mutually inconsistent positions is difficult to navigate. Is it fanciful to imagine that the government is keen to silence some views but promote others?
Nottingham Encampment for the Liberation of Palestine (NCLP)
The pattern of peaceful protestors at universities being faced by attempts to remove them is being replicated across the UK, indeed across the Central Bylines region.
At the University of Nottingham, students have been staging a protest since 10 May. Tents have been erected in front of the Advanced Manufacturing Building. Those involved are calling for the liberation of Palestine but also for transparency and divestment regarding the university’s involvement with any companies involved in the arms trade. In 2021, the University of Nottingham was revealed as one of a handful of Russell Group universities that have either taken money or invested in arms trade firms over the past five years.
The NCLP is peaceful, tidy and well-organised – the members have divided themselves into working groups concerned with, for example, media liaison, security liaison and logistics and food. The camp is positioned so that it does not interfere with the normal activities of the staff and students.
On 16 May, the university management served notice to the NCLP that they would be evicted if they did not move of their own accord.
Support from the UCU
The University and College Union (UCU) is the largest union in the country for the staff of higher and further education. It has more than 120,000 members.
The Nottingham branch of the union (UCU UoN) is fully supportive of the NCLP. Even before the camp was threatened with eviction, the UCU UoN President, Andreas Bieler, had released a statement expressing the solidarity of the union members with the students in the encampment. He is fully supportive of their actions, saying: “We admire your resolve. While so many remain silent, you students have decided to speak up.”
On 16 May, Professor Bieler wrote to the university’s vice chancellor, Professor Shearer West, asking for the decision to evict the protestors to be reconsidered. He made it clear that if university management proceeded with a course of confrontation with the encampment, then the UCU UoN would publicly speak out against it.
University of Birmingham
Similar events are unfolding elsewhere in our region. At the University of Birmingham, protesters set up tents on the Edgbaston Campus on 16 May. Like their fellow protestors in Nottingham, they are calling for, among other things, divestment of the university from arms manufacturers.
Less than 24 hours after the encampment was set up, the University of Birmingham’s director of legal services issued a ‘Notice to Quit’ to the students. The vice chancellor, Professor Adam Tickell, is refusing to meet with the protestors while the camp is in place. In an email to staff, Professor Tickell said that the university “will support students and staff who wish to take part in protests about issues that they care deeply about. However, this does not extend to setting up tents on university property where there is no authority or permission to do so.”
Going nowhere?
At time of writing, the encampments at both universities are still in place. The students at the NCLP are adamant that they are going nowhere until their concerns about divestment have been addressed.
We wait to see whether or not the students at both universities are forcibly removed.
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