Leicester and Birmingham students keep resisting university complicity in Gaza genocide

Students remain on the frontline of resistance against institutional complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. In Leicester, five students are set to go on hunger strike following their university’s harsh repression of anti-genocide protests. In Birmingham, meanwhile, students and others are calling for their university to protect the right to protest amid controversial disciplinary proceedings.

Hunger strike at Leicester university

According to a press release from Leicester Action for Palestine, five University of Leicester students will start a hunger strike on Wednesday 15 January “over the university’s complicity in genocide”. The statement says:

This act of protest follows severe repression from the University, who had 11 people arrested in November for allegedly occupying the Attenborough tower, and is inspired by the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners who have hunger struck in the past, as well as our comrades at the Swansea encampment who went on strike for over a week, securing £5 million of divestment from Barclays bank in the process.

They want the university to “stop banking with Barclays bank”, “disclose and divest” from companies complicit in the Gaza genocide, and to “demilitarise” the campus by cutting “ties with arms companies currently aiding and profiting off of the genocide”. Regarding the latter, the statement explains that:

this includes the 7 and a half million pound research deal with Rolls Royce and Siemens through the school of engineering. Rolls Royce help to produce the F-35’s Israel is using to drop bombs on children and Siemens provided key infrastructure to illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Updates on the hunger strike will appear on @leicsaction4pal on Instagram.

Controversial disciplinary proceedings at Birmingham university

Student-staff coalition BhamLiberatedZone, meanwhile, released a press release explaining how the University of Birmingham is:

under fire for disciplining two students involved in protests against the university’s financial ties to companies allegedly complicit in human rights violations in Palestine.

The “coalition of students, staff, alumni, and public supporters” wants the university to drop disciplinary investigations and “to protect students’ rights to protest”.

The coalition calls Antonia Listrat and Mariyah Ali’s treatment “a deeply prejudiced, management-driven disciplinary process”. It asserts:

The university has accused them of intimidation and participating in unauthorized protests, but activists argue these allegations are exaggerated, rooted in anti-Palestinian racism, and part of a broader effort to suppress pro-Palestinian activism on campus.

Their protest demanded the university’s:

divestment from over £76 million in investments and partnerships with companies allegedly tied to the genocide of Palestinian people.

But as the statement says:

The students have highlighted a pattern of alleged Islamophobia and racial prejudice, including the labelling of Palestinian flags as “threatening” and the removal of such flags from campus, as well as harassment of students wearing Palestine badges. They argue such actions demonstrate systemic repression of pro-Palestinian activism under the guise of maintaining campus safety.

The “prolonged process”, meanwhile, “has caused significant stress and harm to the students’ wellbeing, reflecting a punitive approach to silencing dissent”.

Campaigners want the university: