31 students arrested during occupation of P.C. Hoofthuis
A group of students occupied the P.C. Hoofthuis in protest last Friday morning. The occupation was brought to an end by police when 31 were arrested.
The students all spent one night in jail and were released on Saturday. Three of them accepted an out-of-court settlement of 150 euros but the other 28 will appear in court on 12 November, charged with trespass. Trespass is a criminal offense which can lead to four months of imprisonment or a 5.500 euro fine.
The UvA Board had asked the students to leave the P.C. Hoofthuis voluntarily but then proceeded to file a complaint of trespass when they refused. After the eviction at around 3 A.M, a dozen more students were alleged to still be hiding in the building. One of them was handed over to the police by a guard but the rest of them escaped.
The P.C. Hoofthuis was open for business again by the start of the week. A spokesperson for the UvA insists that university buildings are not secured or monitored more than before. Van Dijk: ‘We are a semi-public institution in the middle of the city. We do not want to turn the UvA into a bunker.’
The Autonomous University
Responsibility for the occupation was claimed in a press statement published last Friday by the previously unknown action group, The Autonomous University. It stated that its members occupied the P.C. Hoofthuis on the Spuistraat and that ‘[The students are] protesting the government’s austerity policy. Against budget cuts in the public sector and cuts in education but also against the UvA Board, which is doing far too little about the deterioration of education, a lack of a diversity and increased workloads at the university’. They demand structural investments in higher education.
The occupation was supported by national student union LSVb, Amsterdam student union ASVA, student party Humanities Rally and 78 UvA teachers and professors.
‘We are already aware of their demands’, said UvA president Geert ten Dam, ‘and are working very hard to take steps in the right direction. But to occupy a building and interrupt research and education is not the right way to go about things. Obviously I would have preferred we just talk things through.’
