A group called "KCL ACTION PALESTINE" has come out of the occupation and will continue to fight for the end of the siege of Gaza and a Free Palestine on campus and raise awareness about the need to keep building the movement. 

So far, KCLAP has managed to raise over 8000 pounds for Gaza as part of a three week fundraising campaign, culminating in a gig, supported by the university and the SU as part of the demands won by the occupation. KCLAP is currently working on securing scholarships for five palestinian students every year and getting the university to send surplus material to Gaza. 

If you are a student at King's, join us! contact kclactionpalestine@gmail.com

Hicham Yezza (Nottingham) on Student Activism in Comment is Free

You can read Hicham’s full article “Student Apathy is Good for Business” here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/19/student-politics-sit-ins-gaza

Message from the Islamic University of Gaza

Dear fellow students of King's College ,

We would like to express our sincere thanks and deep appreciation for all your conscious efforts, endeavours and demands to support the right to education, justice and freedom in Palestine.

We wholeheartedly support your peaceful protests against the blanket bombing of Gaza in general and the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) in particular which suffered extensive destruction and damage to all its buildings, academic facilities. Additionally more than 20,000 students, whose families have been agonizing from the suffocating siege of Gaza, have lost some members of their families and many others have lost their houses.

With great respect and admiration, we have been following all activities taking place in 19 British universities. Your brave campaign has strengthened both our hope and will that we are not alone in this just battle against unprecedented blatant injustices and flagrant violation of human in Palestine.

We are absolutely proud of you all and proud of your solidarity and support campaign for the right to education in Palestine which gives us bright light in the heart of the military occupation darkness.

We wish you full success in your supportive campaign and in achieving all your sensible demands which show a high level of awareness and commitment to defend basic human rights in Gaza at a time of obvious media bias and hypocrisy of many governments.

We hope to cooperate with you soon to establish mutual academic cooperation between our academic institutions. In this regard, we confirm our high interest and strong willingness to provide you with any information, facts, plans, courses, etc related to your practical demands.

In solidarity with King's College Students in Occupation

Dr Kamalain Sha'ath
President, The Islamic University of Gaza

The independent on student sit-ins

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/students-are-revolting-the-spirit-of-68-is-reawakening-1604043.html

Fundraising Meeting

Emergency Fundraising Meeting:

Having suffered an 18-month blockade, followed by nearly a month of heavy bombardment, Gaza is in desperate need of aid. Yesterday afternoon we had a very productive meeting with KCLSU officials and decided on a few things, namely that fundraising will begin on Monday 9th February, last for 3 weeks and all proceeds will go to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC).

Owing to this, it is imperative that we hold an emergency organising meeting on MONDAY 9TH FEBRUARY. Please meet outside the STRAND ENTRANCE at 11am and we will move onto a suitable location from there. We will briefly discuss the outcomes of the meeting with the SU, the ideas we’ve already formulated and then delegate responsibilities/tasks for all those able to help, such as campus supervisors. We need to make the most out of the 3 weeks we have, so it's important that we begin our fundraising efforts immediately. Please also bring with you any ideas you have for raising money.

Statement from KCL regarding our protest

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/news_details.php?year=2009&news_id=998

University of Nottingham forcibly removes Occupiers

Security staff from the University of Nottingham have forcibly removed students occupying a lecture theatre with police present. Property of students has been confiscated. Rush calls in protest to the University on 0115 9515151.

N.B.
Supporter Baroness Tonge was denied access to visit the protesters on Saturday evening at about 6pm and addressed them from outside the windows of the occupied lecture theatre.

After the victory: What next?

Open meeting for all those who have been inspired by the movement, and want to discuss the way forward.

Tuesday 3rd February
5pm
The Spit, Guy's Campus

"From the river to the Strand, this is Palestinian land."

KCL Occupation

Occupation Comes To An End, As Students Declare Victory!

King's College London Students End Occupation, Declaring Victory

Feb. 1, 2009

(London) King's College London students declared victory today after almost two weeks occupying a lecture theatre at the Central London Strand campus. The students began their sit-in protest almost a fortnight ago on Tuesday morning January 20th, demanding a series of measures from the university management aimed at recognising the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza and initiating concrete measures to help to alleviate it. King's College students were particularly concerned about the stance of King's College in light of the decision to award an honorary doctorate to Shimon Peres, current president of Israel.

"The college has agreed to a series of measures to directly address the current crisis in Gaza, including the provision of scholarships for those directly affected by the crisis, and the donation of educational resources to institutions in Palestine", said Mido Khan on behalf of the student protesters. "In addition, the college has acknowledged the scale of discontent that the award to Peres has generated among the student population, particularly considering the award in the context of what has happened recently in Gaza." The students agreed to cease their occupation after college management agreed to publish a statement outlining the position of the College on these issues and the humanitarian measures undertaken in the wake of the occupation.

"This signals the reintroduction of student activism as a powerful agent for political change, and shows us that if we make a stand then we can make a difference", said Hesham Yafai.

Organising meeting

There will be an important organising meeting tomorrow (Sat) at 2pm in the occupied lecture theatre. Please spread the word and make sure you're there.

King's Students March on Principal's Office

Today at 1.30pm 150 students left the strand campus and marched across Waterloo Bridge to the principal's office in the James Clerk Maxwell building.

Chanting 'KCL you must know / the doctorate has got to go!' the students delivered a petition to the principal demanding that he revokes Shimon Peres's honary degree.

The occupation and the building of support within the student body will continue until our demands are met.


pictures to follow...

Nottingham and Bradford occupied

The universities of Nottingham and Bradford have now gone into occupation, proving that the wave of stuggle is still on the up...

Nottingham's blog: http://occupationnottingham.wordpress.com/

Program for Wednesday

We have now been occupying King's College for 8 days

11am- Organising meeting
2.15pm- John Chalcraft of the LSE and Martha of the Free Gaza Movement
5pm- David Summerfield from the School of Psychiatry
6.30pm- Stathis Kouvelakis, KCL lecturer in European Politics & Philosophy and Abdullahi Awwad, Palestinian journalist and media analyst
8pm - Organising meeting

Be there - room K.2.31 near the chapel!

Queen Mary joins the wave of university occupations

We have just received this message from Queen Mary:


Hi there,

I'm emailing from Queen Mary University of London. As of about half past nine this evening we started an occupation in solidarity of Gaza. Any support, advice, recommendations would be much appreciated. Here is a link to our blog http://queenmaryoccupation.blogspot.com/

Many thanks.

Queen Mary

What's on today...

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS - 27.01.09

14:00pm Jim Wolfreys - King's UCU President (pc) and European Studies lecturer
16:00pm Yael - Israeli Activist from Islington Friends of Yibna (Palestinian refugee camp)
18:00pm Gill Kaffash on Israeli violations of International Law
and Naomi from Jews for Boycott of Israeli goods

ALL WELCOME

King's students address BBC demo

King's College students Callum and Lubaaba spoke to tens of thousands of people in trafalgar square after the march from the infamous Biased Broadcasting Corporation. Here is their message of hope for the growing student movement in solidarity with the people of Palestine:


Shahrar Ali, Green Party

We're winning... now revoke the doctorate

After College management acceding to many of our demands relating to organising a fundraising day for Gaza, donating educational resources, scholarships and making links with Palestinian universities...

... we are now urging all of you to CONTACT THE PRINCIPAL: principal@kcl.ac.uk AND URGE HIM TO REVOKE SHIMON PERES'S DOCTORATE. CC all emails to kcloccupation@gmail.com.

Now that we have won many demands from College management, we have to ramp up the pressure on the issue of the doctorate - make sure you spread the word asap.

We are organising a WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL OF SHIMON PERES at 1pm today in the liberated space (K2.31, Strand Campus - near the Chapel).

Join the Facebook for the King's occupation at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=58062638627&ref=mf

BBC Glasgow is now Occupied!

BBC HEADQUARTERS OCCUPIED IN SCOTLAND

Over 100 supporters of Scottish Stop the War Coalition and Palestinian groups
have occupied the BBC headquaters in Glasgow. They say they will not end their
occupation until the BBC has reversed its decision not to broadcast an
emergency aid appeal for Gaza. The protestors are demanding to meet with a
senior representative of the BBC.

Keith Boyd, one of the protesters occupying BBC Scotland's HQ, can be contacted
on: 07912348366


FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Andrew Burgin
07939 242 229
Press Office
Stop the War Coalition
27 Britannia Street
London WC1X 9JP
www.stopwar.org.uk


An analysis of BBC's biased coverage of Israel/Palestine:

http://www.glasgowmediagroup.org/content/view/4/2/

Meeting Sunday at 2pm

Dear King's students!

We invite all students to come by the liberated space Sunday at 2pm. Here we will have an important organising meeting.

The agenda:
- response to the principal
- update from working groups
- the question of nation wide coordination
- should we step up activities at King's and our PR-work
- the program for Monday and Tuesday (speakers: George Galloway/ Tony Benn?)
- other points

Hope to see you all there!

Free Gaza - condemn the massacre!
King's

Letter of support from member of staff

Doing The Difficult
A Smart man once said:-
‘If you want to rise, you have to do the difficult,’
I believe in that then and I believe in it now.
It is simply not good enough to say when confronted with a point of view that it is unprecedented to revoke an honorary degree on the basis it has never been done. Just because it has never been done, does not mean it should not happen. The human race as a species would never have made the progress we had if someone didn’t take a risk, do the difficult, follow a theory or line of thought to produce the end result that has propelled us forward. Nothing was ever achieved by taking the easy route or path of least resistance.
It is right that over one thousand people, above all children, should be killed and maimed for no other reason that thirteen people of neighbouring nation were killed? Terribly as those thirteen deaths were, two wrongs do not make a right. And over one thousand innocent lives lost does not make it right.
Peace is in some respects an undiscovered country. For some a journey that has never been undertaken but one that must be made eventually. No one says it will be easy, for making peace is harder than making war. It is difficult. But if one is to rise, one has to do the difficult. The current situation in Gaza as well as elsewhere should not be happening. Oppressing innocent people, killing innocent people, especially children-The future of a nation is inexcusable. Especially in the twenty-first Century.
So Mr.Principal-Rise and do the difficult-Revoke the Honorary Doctorate-It is not held by an honorary man, nor one with honour.

Anonymous