So we live ina time of change. The time of Obama, faced with a global financial and economical crisis. We are reminded of the 1930′s, and how fascism and nazism blossomed of it. Nowadays, we realize that migrants aret he easy target of popular and political fears and angers. Politicians hesitate to question inhuman treatment of migrants. Even less will they analyze their own argument for excluding people and depriving them of basic human rights.

While migrants and their organizations are struggling in a world wide campaign for their human rights, we are faced with a clear and double danger: the crisis itself, which will affect our capacity to act and the back-lash it may provoke, making xenophobia stronger and more aggressive. And more respectable…

That is why we have to be strong and together, and prepared for worse.

We should reinforce our connections and make more people aware of our reality. A reality of suffering and resistance, like those of us who have gone through detention centers, well know. The reality is that people are there without legal protection, without charge, just because they “don’t belong here”.

We are happy to see students and professors in places like New York and Helsinki reacting in their way to the crisis. And we are happy to see Helsinki protesting against special measures against non-EU citizens.

Spread the Word.

University students, researchers, professors and staff are currently occupying the director’s floor in the building of the university administration of Helsinki University in Finland.

This happened as an offshoot of a demonstration against a new draconian “reform” soon to be
presented to the Finnish parliament. The new laws (more below) would change the choice of the governing councils of the university, essentially depriving the universities of autonomy, likely putting non-university board members in key positions (business people and politicians) and importantly, introducing the possibility of charging fees for non-EU students.. which in Europe is used as a back-door precedent followed by demanding tuition fees from everyone -  the failed free-market model.

Many words of were heard in reference to other movements to Greece, France, Italy, India and … and then the news came in that students at New York University (http://takebacknyu.com/) are practising direct democracy of the same sort..
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Solidarity from the University of Helsinki to the occupants at NYU

Today on Thursday, February the 19th, we occupied the administration building of our university.

This took place after our demonstration against the new Universities Act proposed by the Finnish government. The parliament will decide about the law this Spring. We demand the law to be withdrawn. We want to reform our university from a totally different, more democratic perspective.

We are also protesting against the university leadership which has given its support to the law despite our opposition. The law we are opposing would significantly increase the influence corporations have on our university and thus our science. We are defending the autonomy of knowledge and the freedom of research. We are also defending the free access to higher education as stated in the Finnish Constitution.
We are not defending our university as it is, we want to create autonomous spaces for producing and sharing information.

Our demonstration today was participated by 1500 people. It was organised autonomously by students and university staff, independently of their unions. After the demonstration, a group of more than 100 demonstrators occupied this building. Today we have made our voices heard and we will keep
doing so until we win!

We want to send you our solidarity. We share your struggle!

Opiskelijatoiminta
http://opiskelijatoiminta.net