No More Page 3: Students In Nationwide Protest Over Sun's Topless Models

PICTURES: Students Protest Over Page 3

Students took to the streets across England to campaign against the Sun's use of topless models on page three, as well as urging their universities to ban the sale of the tabloid.

The demonstrations coincided with the 43rd anniversary of page three, and took place in 10 locations including Nottingham, Westminster and Warwick.

Lily Huggins, a committee member from Warwick University's No More Page 3 campaign group, said students petitioned outside the student union's Costcutter shop, which continues to sell the paper despite repeated requests to stop stocking it.

"Part of our campaign was centred around promoting the achievement's of women such as Malala Yousafzai and Nadia Tolokonnikova and arguing they are more worthy of media coverage than the current Page 3 content," Huggins told HuffPost UK. "We created a collage of the photos of men and women taken from two issues of ‘The Sun’ to visually highlight this disparity. Whilst men tended to be pictured doing important things such as running countries/ managing football teams, women we more likely to be pictured for their bodies or celebrity.

"The response from people we spoke to was overall very positive. We had many people approach us, including a large amount of male students, and people eager to find out more or tell us how they had already signed and shared the petition.

"Some students were shocked to hear that Warwick University even sells newspapers which contain it," she added.

The Sun has been banned from 25 universities in the UK, following the hard work of campaigning students.

No More Page 3 team member, Jo Cheetham, told the Independent students are a key part of the campaign and praised them for their “creative, inspirational protests”.

Student Beth Rowlands, who attended the protest in Nottingham, told HuffPost UK her team collected 385 signatures in three hours.

"It was a generally mixed atmosphere, lots of people - and surprisingly lots of women - supported Page Three and made comments as such as they walked past, but conversely lots of people, men and women, signed the campaign and showed a lot of support.

"Unsurprisingly, the issue is quite controversial but I spoke to a few people who were concerned to learn that The Sun is a family newspaper when it has such family-inappropriate images inside! It was great to just be around, the men and women protesting were great people, really nice to spend the afternoon with them!"

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