http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,581418,00.html
Student protesters organise strategic
meeting

Education Guardian.co.uk

Joe Plomin
Friday October 26, 2001

Student protesters from more than a dozen universities are meeting in London tonight to organise a national anti-war movement.

A rally at the University of London's student union is only expected to attract about 300 students from around the country. Speakers will include author Mark Steel and the Asian Dub Foundation's Pandit G.

However, according to the Stop the War Coalition's student organiser, Helen Salmon, it is not the number of people who turn up, but whether those who do start organising a national student campaign.

Delegations from Manchester, Cambridge, Nottingham, Derby,
Wolverhampton, Southampton, Glasgow and Central England universities, along with students from Shrewsbury College and several London universities, have already said they will be attending.

"I would like students to realise what they can achieve. At the School of Oriental and Asian Studies they had a seven-hour teach-in about the bombing that over 400 people attended. That kind of action could be going on around the country," said Ms Salmon.

However, the student co-ordinator of the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament, Liz Hutchins, said, while students sharing information and campus-based action is still important, the time has come for the anti-war movement to start working less on campuses and more in the national arena.

"We have to put pressure on the National Union of Students and wavering MPs to actually start doing something. And we have to support MPs who are criticising the bombing of Afghanistan. I think it is important that we
actually start lobbying," she said.