Originally published November 30  2010 Edinburgh students have occupied Appleton Tower in an attempt to pressure the University to sign a pledge affirming opposition to education cuts and tuition fee rises.

When The Student went to press on Sunday, the protesters had staked their ground for 92 hours.

The protesters, known as Appleton, opened negotiations with the university via Twitter, on Friday evening. Demonstrators presented a document to University Principal Sir Timothy O’Shea outlining their demands.

The Student understands that O’Shea presented the protesters with his own version of the document on Monday, having looked over their proposals at the weekend.

In a statement on their website, the protestors claimed this was "the first stage of our victory" and added they were "very pleased to have successfully opened negotiations."

The pledge students want the university to sign up to claims cuts to education "will fundamentally damage our courses and the quality of our students’ education."

It also states, "We, the University of Edinburgh, recognise the intrinsic value of education in all subjects and that education is a public good above and beyond profit.

"We pledge that the workers at this university will not suffer compulsory redundancies or deterioration of their terms and conditions as a result of these cuts.

"We voice solidarity with all other UK universities and their students facing hardship as a result of the proposed cuts and tuition fees rises. We will endeavor to convince Russell Group members and other universities to take a similar stance."

The pledge also demands consultation with students, staff and trade unions before any cuts on spending are made, and asks the university to confirm, ‘no action’ will be taken against "any of the persons involved in this protest or any previous protests in line with these beliefs."

Edinburgh University Students Association (EUSA) president Liz Rawlings told The Student on Sunday that the students’ association were actively working with protestors to fulfil EUSA’s responsibility to ensure students’ welfare, but stressed the association had no official policy regarding the occupation.

EUSA has refused to officially back to the protest until a student council meeting is held, and the students' association has been represented in discussions between university and staff.

However, Rawlings voiced her personal support: "I am supportive of the occupation for solidarity with students across the UK. We could be facing a tuition fee vote in a matter of days. UK wide action of this kind is necessary to show politicians the enormous strength of feeling against cuts."

Following the anti-cuts protest in Edinburgh last Wednesday, students met in Appleton Tower Lecture Theatre 2 to discuss a plan of action, and decided on an occupation of the facility on Wednesday evening. Students proceeded to occupy the main lobby of the building as the weekend progressed.

Made up of a variety of anti-cuts groups and acting under the banner of EdinUniAntiCuts, they said that they had received support from the university staff.

The group intend to leave Appleton Tower tower and are expected to march to Scottish Parliament.

Lectures scheduled for the theatre were moved on Thursday and Friday, although protestors maintained that they had no desire to disrupt education and offered to vacate during teaching.

There had initially been concern that informatics students would not be able to access the building during the night to work due to the occupation.

A number were turned away on the first evening for security reasons, however, an agreement was reached shortly after. Deadline extensions were granted to a number of students affected.

Lectures will go ahead as normal in the occupied theatre this week, with a small number of occupiers remaining inside throughout.

One protestor, Charlie Goodwin, a third year social anthropology student and member of Edinburgh University Anarchist Society, told The Student on Thursday that the protest was about "letting university know we’re still here, we’re still angry and we’re not going away till you concede to our pledge."

Speaking before the weekend lockdown, he said, "We want the university to take a solid stance against the cuts and fees. The Russell Group have said they want to increase fees to £9,000 which I think is incredibly unfair, because it means education is based on the ability to pay rather than the ability to learn, which is something I think is horrendous."

Goodwin was keen to stress the university itself "has already expressed its opposition to the Browne Report and to the cuts" and admitted the university had been "very supportive of our occupation here, and very supportive of our aims."

He added, "We just don’t think these cuts are acceptable, particularly in education that we all know is very important."

Referring to the decision to move lectures from Appleton Tower on Thursday and Friday, Goodwin said, "We have made a statement that we don’t want lectures to be disturbed. If lectures are scheduled to go on in there then we will vacate the lecture theatre, leaving maybe a delegation at the back. People can have their lectures."

"We are not angry with our university. That’s no what this is about. This is about encouraging the university to take a stand on what they’ve already said they support," he added.

He was also keen to stress the national nature of the protest, pointing out there were "lots of universities in occupation yesterday and today." He added that protestors had spoken to protesting students from Cardiff University, who he claimed were, at that point, "being denied food, water and going to the toilet."

Public support meetings for the protestors were reportedly held in Teviot on both Saturday and Sunday, and the website said food was "continually being dropped off" over the weekend, including some from the Mosque Kitchen at Edinburgh Central Mosque.

The Edinburgh sit-in has been replicated across 11 other universities across the country; University College London, West of England, SOAS, Leeds, Manchester, Plymouth, East Anglia, Cambridge, Newcastle, Brighton and Sheffield. The occupations co-signed an open letter, published in the Guardian on Monday that called for "bold, spontaneous and direct action from students themselves has brought the student movement to this point."

In a meeting with students with students at UCL on Sunday morning, National Union of Students President, Aaron Porter called for an immediate new wave of occupations: "For too long the NUS has been too cautious, too spineless about being committed to supporting student activism."