The statement reads as follows:  

Four days into the student occupation in Cambridge, University management have obtained a possession order giving them permission to forcefully evict the protestors.  Students in the occupation are planning to resist the order and stay the night, and have called on management to negotiate.

The occupation began on Friday in a wave of student occupations this month against cuts to education and public services.  Since that time, students have issued demands on the university and held a series of free and open lectures, workshops, discussions, and performances. The occupation has received support from over 200 Cambridge academics, and an international petition has received over 500 signatures including political writer and linguist Noam Chomsky, economics writer Jeff Madrick, and historian Frances Fox Piven.

Students were informed that the University filed the request for a possession order on Friday, the day the occupation began – seeking permission to forcefully evict students before even having had a chance to hear their demands. From Friday, management also put in motion a process to shut down the wireless internet network, which was not processed until today because of the weekend.

The students sent a statement to the vice-chancellor calling on him to break the silence and open formal dialogue: "We urge the University management to break their silence and arrange an opportunity for formal dialogue with us immediately."  Students called on management to "arrange an opportunity for formal dialogue with us as soon as possible before committing to any action disproportionate to the peaceful status of the current situation."

Students requested the support of Aaron Porter, NUS president, who pledged to the UCL occupation the resources of the NUS in providing legal advice and financial support to occupiers. But Porter said that the NUS would not provide support to individual occupations.

Jenny Paulson, a student in the occupation, said: "It's disgraceful that the University would call the cops on its students before even reading our demands, though perhaps not surprising considering the police brutality we saw at the demo in Cambridge on Wednesday.  Now more than ever we need to stand up against tuition fees, and cuts to all public services: and we won't let the University's intimidation tactics stop us."

Ralph Ginson, a student in the occupation, said: "We are particularly disappointed in Aaron Porter, who is clearly taking a page out of Nick Clegg's book in only taking one day to go back on his pledge to support students.  Porter is actually putting students in danger by offering legal advice and not following through.  We are being failed by institutions which are meant to be standing up for us--this is why we need to step up to act and resist."