College granted injunction against protesters
A Cambridge college has been granted an interim High Court injunction against pro-Palestine protesters who had taken up position in its grounds.
Activists from the Cambridge 4 Palestine group were evicted from land at Magdalene College, off the city’s Bridge Street, on Tuesday morning at about 07:00 BST.
The legal stance follows similar action by both Trinity College and St John’s College after the group set up camp on their sites in recent weeks.
A spokesperson for Cambridgeshire Police said: “Officers attended in case there was a breach of the peace but there was none.”
Magdalene College has been contacted for comment.
The injunction papers, which cover the entire Magdalene site, state that the college “is fully committed to the principle and to the promotion of freedom of speech”.
The Cambridge 4 Palestine protest at Magdalene College began on 21 June, with activists arriving at the site by boat [BBC]
In a statement, the protest group said the university had spent “thousands of pounds to hand our protesters an interim injunction and fence in their possessions, instead of looking to aid suffering Palestinians with that money”.
It added: “As students who don’t want their tuition money being spent on the starving of babies, we reject the attempt to repress our right to protest complicity in this violence.”
On 30 May, activists camped on Newton Lawn outside Trinity College, later moving to land at St John’s College before both colleges served injunctions.
Last year, pro-Palestine protesters staged demonstrations at Senate House Yard and Greenwich House which “forced” a graduation ceremony to be moved, university lawyers previously said.
A previous effort to impose a five-year injunction prohibiting direct action relating to the conflict without its consent on several sites was also rejected by a judge in February.
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