Yale students protest war

From: Yale Daily News

Attempting to reinvigorate a previously subdued antiwar movement on campus, a coalition of student leaders from Yale and the University of New Haven declared Saturday afternoon that “our generation’s battle” is to oppose the war in Iraq.

The kickoff rally, sponsored by the new group Yale Opposes the War, came during an afternoon of 24 simultaneous statewide antiwar gatherings. The events were designed to “add to the ammunition” of resistance to the Iraq war, as Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd described it in a live conference call at the event.

Greece: Communique from Educational March

An educational march organised by all the occupied university departments of Greece took place in Athens on the 22nd of February, the same moment that the parliament was discussing the educational reforms that will demolish the public education. We were part of this demonstration and we were together with all of the students who decided to clash with the repression forces of the state which formed a “red zone” in the city centre of Athens and especially around the parliament protecting the ones who decide for our lives but without us.

Read More on Infoshop

March 20 Student Day of Action Against the War

A Call to Action: Anti-war Action Blog

The war in Iraq is entering its fifth year. Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of citizens want the war to end, despite the fact that U.S. forces are being defeated by the Iraqi resistance, Bush recently announced plans to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq. These troops are being committed to fight and die in an unjust war based on lies and greed. Four years is four years too many. The Iraqi people want the foreign occupiers out. They know the U.S. government is not a “liberator,” but whose presence means only continued violence, death, and destruction.

We, students and young people here in the U.S., support the right of the Iraqi people to self-determination. We refuse to accept this new strategy to “expand the military,” and reject any means the government may use to make these new troops materialize – whether through the implementation of a draft or the continued use of manipulative and deceptive recruitment techniques. We refuse to be subtle in our outcry against this war, we refuse to do nothing and be silent while people are killed in our name for profit for the rich and we refuse to be sent overseas in a war for oil.

This past November, 100 students from twenty different college campuses came together at a Students for a Democratic Society meeting in Ft.Benning, GA and unanimously decided that March 20th be declared a national day of student and youth resistance against the war! SDS is calling on all students and youth to get out in the streets, get involved and get organized against this war! We, the students and youth of this country, are taking an active stand against US imperialism and fighting for a better world. We reject this war of greed and profit, and are walking out of our classes and taking to the streets in protest!

FIGHT THE WAR MACHINE – GET ORGANIZED, GET INVOLVED, AND GET IN THE STREETS!

Italy: Students take part in mobilisation against US base

Students were among the tens of thousands of people who took to the streets of Vicenza, Italy, yesterday to protest the planned expansion of a US military base, a divisive issue for Italy’s center-left government.

Swirling the red flag of the Refoundation Communist party, the rainbow flag of the pacifist movement, and the environmentalists’ green standard, the marchers set out in mid-afternoon to encircle the small city of some 100,000 people as police helicopters hovered close overhead.

Read More

Student riot in Pakistan

From: Monsters and Critics

Islamabad – A riot broke out at a university in southern Pakistan on Saturday as students protested the death of a colleague injured few days ago in a brawl, a news report said.

More than 200 youths stormed the Sindh Agriculture University in the district of Hyderabad and besieged the building where a seminar was taking place, the Geo news channel reported.

The mob turned violent and set fire to 15 government vehicles including that of a federal minister who was presiding over the discussion. The office of the university’s vice-chancellor and a workshop were also gutted.

Police were able to disperse the unruly demonstrators after two hours through the use of tear gas and firing in the air.

Battles in Greece

The night of the junta in Athens, was back after 24 years, once again. Policemen of all kinds stormed into Exarchia [a district in Athens center, close to the Polytechnic Uni.] They surrounded cafes, captured and kept the customers and the passers-by like if they were hostages.

Infoshop: Photos from the riots against education reform | Eyewitness Report: 30.000 people march against the education reforms

Student leader jailed for ‘Free Education’ demonstration! – TAKE ACTION NOW

The National Union of Students UK have launched a major campaign calling for the immediate release of Promise Mkwananzi, the President of the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU).

Promise Mkwananzi, and several other student leaders, were arrested on the 13th February 2007 after organising and taking part in a peaceful protest for free, quality education.

More than 600 students, trade unionists, and supporters were demonstrating peacefully when the crowds were dispersed by ruthless riot police and non-uniformed state security agents.

Today, Promise and many of his colleagues are still in prison in Zimbabwe , and fears for their personal safety are mounting.

Click Here to go to a page to send an email to Zimbabwe’s ambassador to the UK.

Greece: This is what democracy looks like

Riot police clashed with dozens of hooded youths in central Athens on Thursday during a protest march against the Greek government’s education reforms.

Read More

Australia: Unis banning political groups from having stalls

From: Green Left Weekly

A disturbing trend is spreading across Australian universities — some universities have begun barring political groups from orientation week (o-week) events.

The February 16 Sydney Morning Herald reported, “Charles Sturt University will prevent political groups setting up stalls during Orientation Week”. CSU’s Greg Walker “said that political parties would not be allowed to pitch to students during O-Week because it was inappropriate for first-year students’ introduction to the university with their parents”.

A February 15 media release by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) revealed that “Macquarie University management has given the responsibility of running ‘O’ Week activities to ‘Students At Macquarie’ (SAM) — a commercial arm of the student association”. SAM says it will not allow the union or student political groups to have stalls because they are not authorised to participate in o-week. Yet, the media release noted, commercial groups and other off-campus groups will be able to lease space.

Anarchist youth defend university with rocks and petrol bombs

THESSALONIKI, Greece: Anarchist youths clashed with riot police for more than three hours in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki on Wednesday, hurling rocks and dozens of petrol bombs outside a university building, authorities said. No injuries were reported.

The youths were protesting plans to relax a law that prohibits police from entering university grounds. The ban is often exploited during violent public protests.

One man was arrested and minor damage was caused to nearby buildings.

Police used tear gas against some 250 youths, who had entered the grounds of Thessaloniki University and later confronted riot police guarding a nearby conference center.

It was the latest act of violence involving anarchist groups, which have stepped up a campaign of arson and other attacks in Athens and Thessaloniki.

On Tuesday, anarchist youths attacked the Athens headquarters of Greece’s largest labor union, the GSEE, using rocks, sledgehammers and petrol bombs to damage the building’s entrance.

GSEE leader Yiannis Panagopoulos, who was leaving the building at the time, escaped unharmed.

Read More