UAL arts students protest about cuts

More than a hundred students protested outside the Royal Courts of Justice today as a London university began proceedings against a group of its own students.

University of the Arts London is seeking an injunction against protesters who have been occupying the reception area at Central Saint Martins for almost a month in a campaign against cuts to foundation degree courses.

Around 80 students have been sleeping in the building since the occupation began on March 19.

Hundreds have attended protest events featuring speakers such as Owen Jones at the site. A petition against the cuts has attracted nearly 3,500 signatures.

Students showing solidarity for the protesters chanted anti-cuts slogans outside the court today, and called for free education.

Sofia Landstron, a 24-year-old MA exhibition studies student at Central Saint Martins, is one of the protesters named on the injunction.

She said: “If this is where they want to put their money I feel we have to just go in there and show this is wrong priorities.”

Ms Landstron added: “We are not just 15 in this, we are a whole movement.”

Seven of the fifteen students named on the injunction are elected UAL Student Union representatives, including Union President Shelly Asquith.

Ms Asquith said: “This is quite clearly an effort to try and victimise people at the university seen as perhaps influential to try and scare the rest of the student body into not doing anything.”

She added: “Most of us are dyslexic, we can't understand the documents, we haven't had enough time to really get proper legal support. The university's got millions of pounds but we have nothing.”

The group has received messages of solidarity from student protesters in Dublin, Denmark and Amsterdam.

Robin Clark, 21, a fine art student at Chelsea College of Arts, is another of the occupiers involved in the court proceedings.