Brighton, UK: Park Village Social Centre

As a result of the inadequacies of Sussex University, we – the supporters of the Squat the Slope occupation have taken it upon ourselves to begin creating the spaces that we wish to see on our own campus, and we invite all students, staff and university workers to join us! We have squatted the Park Village Social Centre – one of the many buildings doomed to demolition in the construction of West Slope, and we have opened the space as a radical and inclusive learning centre for all. All week we will be hosting radical workshops and events (for more info, find us on Instagram @squattheslope), and welcoming everyone to participate, hosting events and creating the change that they want to see on campus! Moreover, we intend to construct our own model for a student assembly, in order to present this framework to the Sussex University management, in line with our 3rd demand. Presented with the failings of the University management in this era of climate breakdown and social crises, we believe the future of Sussex campus must be taken into student hands.

All power to the students!
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Athens: Cops inside the University of Economics. Vancouver squat symbolically reoccupied

It all started on Monday 24 February inside the grounds of Athens University of Economics, when an off duty cop in plain clothes got off his bike and began harassing an immigrant street vendor outside the front gate. The policeman was spotted by anarchist students due to his boots and his helmet that bore the police insignia and was immediately confronted. In his panic, he began running inside the university grounds and managed to trap himself in a dead end corridor, pulled a gun on students and with his finger on the trigger threatened to shoot them while pointing the gun at them for at least 5 minutes, while desperately calling his colleagues on the phone to come and rescue him. The students, not losing their cool, but at the same time not taking a step back demanded he puts the gun down and exits the university grounds. Few minutes later scores of riot policemen stormed the university and attacked students during school hours with flash bang grenades and asphyxiating gas creating chaos because of one imbecile cop that thought he was a cowboy. [Read More]

Amsterdam: The New University squatted an empty office

Today at 13:00 the DNU [De Nieuwe Universiteit / The New University] squatted Oude Turf Markt 147, an empty part of an university building of the UvA [Universiteit van Amsterdam / University of Amsterdam]. The building will be a DNU headquarters, where people can meet to plan actions, do administrative work etc. For a movement, a space to organize is of great importance, this is exactly what DNU had in the Maagdenhuis, but unfortunately that did not last. It seems that the building where they are now located will be empty for longer due to the fact that the faculty of Humanities is cutting its budgets on housing and has moved large groups of administration elsewhere. The part that DNU now owns is barricaded and has its own door to the outside, meaning the rest of the building can still be used by UvA personnel.
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Nijmegen (NL): Critical Cafe opens

On the morning of April 30 the New University Nijmegen opened the critical café Terecht! at Radboud University. This space will be a place where students, teachers and support staff can come together and discuss the role of the university. The New University Nijmegen is a movement proposing for an open, critical university for everyone. It is part of a broader national and international movement of students and teachers. With the opening of Terecht! we hope to make a contribution to the recent debate about the place of the university in society.
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Amsterdam: Students occupy building then leave

Today [April30], on the day before International Workers’ Day, we occupied the Service and Information Centre of the University of Amsterdam to demand attention for the exploitation and precarity of workers within the university, and outside of it.

In a phone call with the temporary head of the board Dymph van den Boom, we confronted her with questions concerning the insecurity and pressure under which workers are forced to produce and transfer knowledge in the neoliberal university.
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