Edd Bauer wins hearing
Here on Bright Green, we don’t report much news. And when we do, it’s usually that some protester somewhere has been arrested/beaten up. But one story we’ve been following for a while is that of student activist legend Edd Bauer. And finally, we have some good news to report! As regular readers will know, Edd, a contributor to Bright Green, was elected VP Education at the Birmingham University Guild of Students last spring. He had stood on a manifesto which promised to fight fees and to fight cuts.
Not long into his term in office, during the Lib Dem conference, he hung a banner from a bridge telling the party that they were traitors – that they were not welcome in Brum. For this, he was arrested for ‘road traffic offenses’. The Magistrate, seeing that he had also been arrested at Fortnum and Mason, and was therefore a dangerous criminal, denied him bail. He spent ten days in jail in Birmingham.
When he returned to work, he found that the Guild had brought disciplinary proceedings against him, with a mind to sack him. In the mean time, they suspended him: essentially for his failure to attend meetings while in prison.
This evening, after weeks of deliberation, the panel returned him to office.
The fight against Birmingham university’s crack down on student protest of course continues, with Amnesty International and Liberty recently slamming the university over it’s assault on democracy. But at least now Birmingham students will have in their union the man they elected to lead the charge.
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