No Cops on Campus- a demand for a Free University

As staff unions and the student movement prepare for renewed struggle and protest this coming Monday, the role of the Cops on campus, both state and private, will be under intense public scrutiny. The Cops have no right to stop political activity, no right to trespass political activists, and no business taking the side of the VC and Management against the students in their own University.

The racist profiling used by the private cops on campus to trespass two leading Maori students, is an indictment of the warning given by Professor Margaret Mutu the security guards have senior leadership from a South African background who apparently think that the University of Auckland is a private area where premission must be sought to engage in political activity.

The University of Auckland is on Ngati Whatua land. The University of Auckland is funded by the taxpayers, who in this capitalist society, are largely the working and lower middle classes. Workers and Maori have every right to be on University.
Without our land and taxes, it would not exist.

Students in Auckland Uni have always played a political role in the life of this city- opposing the Vietnam War, organising against Apartheid, demonstrating in solidarity with local Maori at Bastion Point. It is the racist security guards, ignorant of this University's history and culture, who should be trespassed, and our comrades Wikatana Popata and Marcus Coverdale should be given their political freedom back.

Human rights defenders will be on campus in force on Monday to monitor the actions of security forces as the struggle for Free Education, democratic student unions, fairness for staff and free speech goes to its next level. These demands will be joined by another- No Cops on Campus- stop the University's crackdown on Political Freedom.