A huge protest brought Belfast city centre to a standstill as over two thousand young people, mainly school students, showed their opposition to £9,000 a year tuition fees for nearly 4 hours.
Police filmed school students as young as 13, pushed young protesters faces into police vans and shoved people into the crowd as a clear attempt to intimidate protesters.
What next after 9th December
After a short vote the Tory-Lib Dem government voted through up to £9,000 a year fees and the scrapping of the Education Maintenance Allowance. The next step is the implementation of these attacks in Northern Ireland.
In Belfast a meeting has been called to bring together young people to build the movement against fees and EMA cuts. Now is the time to build a united movement of catholic and protestant youth to defeat fees.
Socialist Youth, youth wing of the Socialist Party is calling for another mass day of protest across Northern Ireland. Now campaigning groups need to get organised in every school, tech, university campus and link these groups with workers struggles to defeat fees and fight public sector cuts.