Oxford University threatens pro-Palestine activists with legal action over camps

Oxford University has threatened pro-Palestine activists with legal action over student encampments that have been on campus since May.

The university has issued an open letter to students stating that it will apply for a possession order to dismantle the camps itself if students do not vacate the site by Sunday.

Oxford students set up encampments at two sites across the university as part of action to demand the university details and divests funding links to Israel and arms companies, and “end the complicity with genocide”.

Students have also carried out a sit-in at university offices in Wellington Square, which led to 16 protesters being arrested, and in June protesters forced the university to cancel exams after they stormed a building on campus.

In the open letter, issued by the registrar and senior proctor, the university said it deemed the forced entry of Wellington Square and the occupation of the Examination Schools as “totally unacceptable”, despite what it called a series of “largely peaceful protests” in the final term of the academic year.

The university also raised concerns the camps have been “used as a base for unlawful activity”, have interfered with academic activity, and left disabled students unable to access its main library.

It cited “significant damage” to the lawns caused by the encampments, complaints that have been lodged by fellow students and “the failure of protesters to consult with the proctors” before establishing the camps.

A physical notice posted by the university administration addressed to “persons unknown” stated that the “current use and occupation of [Radcliffe Square] is not lawful and amounts to an act of trespass”.

It comes after officials at the university fenced off an encampment on the Natural History Museum lawn on Sunday and attempted to clear it two days later.

Activist group Oxford Action For Palestine (OA4P) claimed the university used “heavy machinery” to clear a memorial flower garden that had been created by the students for the victims of the war killed in Palestine.

Oxford University said any plants in the area had been “carefully removed by hand” and were being cared for by gardeners. It said a “mechanical scoop” had been required to remove large amounts of soil and a heavy structure made of wooden pallets in the area and that it had entered the site in “the interests of public safety and to prevent damage to the infrastructure[...] beneath the lawn”.

A number of pro-Palestine student encampments are currently in place across UK universities.

The London School of Economics ordered activists to leave an encampment on the London campus following legal action, which it said it took after “exhausting all other options” earlier this month.

At Cambridge University, activists remain in the encampment outside King’s College, which has been allowed to remain after Deborah Prentice, vice-chancellor, said the institution was  “fully committed to freedom of speech within the law, and the right to protest”.

OA4P has been contacted for comment.