AN INJUNCTION banning student occupation protests in Birmingham is being challenged by a leading law firm.

The protest began last November when students from the University of Birmingham moved into an abandoned university building to protest against increased tuition fees.

In response, the university obtained a High Court injunction that prevents students from staging protests involving occupation.

The injunction was granted by Judge David Grant on November 25, and states that students are banned from assembling in any occupation-style protests on campus for one year.

Any student in breach of the ban could be punished with a fine or even imprisonment.

However, leading law firm Public Interest Lawyers is representing students trying to overturn the ban, and has written to the University of Birmingham’s vice-chancellor, Professor David Eastwood, to contest the injunction.

The firm fears that the court order could potentially criminalise any protest that sees participants remaining in a location for any length of time.

They have requested that the vice-chancellor revoke the injunction immediately, which a solicitor at the firm, Tessa Gregory, deemed as “needlessly aggressive”, “draconian” and “completely at odds with the university’s duty to respect and protect students’ right to freedom of expression and association”.

She said, “universities should be at the forefront of ensuring the right to protest is protected, not responsible for the criminalisation of its students, who wish to raise serious concerns of public importance”.

Those in favour of the injunction insist that the university had an obligation to protect the safety and wellbeing of students, staff and the wider community.

A spokeswoman from the University of Birmingham told The Guardian that going to court was a last resort, but that the protestors’ occupation of a small residential building was illegal and raised concerns over safety.

She said, “[the injunction] followed repeated requests to the unlawful occupiers to leave the building, and followed safety advice that suggested that the protestors were at risk”.

In a similar case, the University of Sheffield dropped its High Court order banning protests after the claim was contested by the university's students' union. Buoyed by this news, and as peaceful protests continue to take place on campus, protestors remain optimistic that the revocation of the injunction will succeed.