Student Occupation at the University of Manchester

The following is adapted from a press release from the student occupation at the University of Manchester. For further info go to http://roscoeoccupation.wordpress.com/.

The student occupation of the Roscoe Building at the University of Manchester is to continue into next week. Activists are using the occupation as a focus for drumming up further support on the Manchester campus as well as in local colleges.

Meetings have been held in the occupied building with several guest speakers addressing a packed lecture theatre, containing University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan and University of Salford students as well as students from various colleges around the region, union
representatives, parents, lecturers, political activists and more.

The occupiers have resolved:

• to hold a meeting at noon in the occupied theatre on Monday.
• to remain in occupation for the duration of the weekend, despite being told by the university that we’d be locked in.
• to hold a rally on Tuesday as part of the national protest day, outside University Place.
• to send a delegation down to London for the national coordination meeting on Sunday. The delegates are to stay with the University College London occupation on Saturday night.

The occupiers have made clear their dissatisfaction with the university’s decision to close the Roscoe Building through the weekend. The management committee are not allowing access to the building for food deliveries or water deliveries, as well as turning the heating off for the weekend. This as a clear attempt to starve the occupiers out of the building and evict them through force, which is an unacceptable response to a peaceful protest.