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Edinburgh Live
Edinburgh Live
National
Iuliia Vlasova

Edinburgh University students take over lecture theatre to deliver 'education for liberation'

A youth activist group is reclaiming Edinburgh University's lecture hall once again to host a week of "education for liberation" open events.

The Youth in Resistance group occupied the Gordon Aikman Lecture theatre at Edinburgh University on Monday, October 10, and are running sessions "to listen to indigenous voices and learn from local and international struggles".

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The initiative hopes to educate and bring together like-minded people and build communities.

Announcing the series of events, the group said: "The University of Edinburgh should be a place for active, critical education where we learn from other perspectives.

"Instead, our university is a site of miseducation that reinforces imperialist domination, not only through the vision of the world they impose but also in churning out a workforce that upholds this establishment."

The group has also gone on to reveal a list of the university's faults that theur are aiming to irradicate with their educational initiative.

Youth in Resistance criticised the university for its public declaration of support for the Royal Family - who the group deemed to be an institution founded on centuries of extractivism, land theft, rape, murder, and genocide - and for its investment in Israeli arms companies.

The list goes on to claim that Edinburgh University represses student protest and enacts fear in the local communities, and exploits its staff and commodification of higher education.

A University of Edinburgh spokesperson said: “We support the right of people to protest lawfully and peacefully and are working with the students to ensure their safety and provide for their basic needs. Senior colleagues are currently in dialogue with the students concerned.

“The University also has a duty to its entire community to keep any disruption to a minimum, and so we are working to relocate affected teaching and activities to other areas or delivery modes.”

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