Non-violent peaceful protests on campus are often met with security and police, but the latest is of an unprecedented scale. Outside the Arts building on Tuesday evening there were two police vans and numerous police cars, amounting to around 30 police in total. Unfortunately, for the student activist, this proves that the university are prepared to use extreme and unnecessary levels of force against its students.

The intolerance of the university to this non-violent peaceful protest conducted and supported by many students demonstrates huge disparities between The University of Birmingham and other Universities across the country where other occupations have taken place. As of today (Jan 29th, 2009), there have been a total of 14 occupations the latest being Nottingham, with LSE and Warwick holding their occupations for over a week. Although in most of these occupations university security presence is high, police and the threat of removal using police force has not been heavily reported.

It seems that The University of Birmingham are so intolerant of student activism, however peaceful, that they deem it necessary to rely on the threat of arrest to remove their students from campus. This is not the first time students at the University have been threatened with arrest whilst undertaking peaceful protest. Only last term 2 other students were threatened with arrest on separate occasions, both of whom were protesting at careers fairs.

In addition to this it has also been reported that on Thursday 22nd January when a coalition of societies hosted a demonstration on campus in solidarity with Gaza and Palestine there were plain clothed police present. This is just another example of unwarranted police presence on campus. The demonstration was peaceful, despite the presence of a counter-demonstration which was advocating peace through the destruction of Hamas, who are in fact democratically elected in the Gaza Strip.

The ongoing use of excessive police time and ‘intelligence’ for non-violent peaceful and most of all lawful protests is only present at the University’s request, which simply stresses how the University are striving to criminalise student action and quell any murmur of student activism on campus. This does not bode well for our already threatened future, as many students continue to live in their ‘student bubble’ those that attempt to raise awareness and be the change they want to see are repressed by University management. This does not mean that this attempt of suppression will dampen the activist movement on campus, it will only politicise it more and ignite future actions.