UK human rights groups have condemned one of Britain's biggest universities for "criminalising" sit-in protests, describing the move as worrying, aggressive and censorious.

On Thursday it was reported that Birmingham University had obtained a high court injunction banning all occupation-style protests on its 250-acre campus for one year. The injunction prevents "persons unknown" from staging any "occupational-style protest" for 12 months unless they obtain prior written permission from university management.

Facing fines, seizure of assets and imprisonment for contempt of court if they break the order, the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts say they are organising students from around the country to protest against the injunction on Brimingham's campus after the Christmas holiday.

The controversial move follows similar action from Sheffield University, which subsequently went back to court to have the order quashed after it faced outrage from its own students earlier this week.

A trend for higher education institutions to obtain court injunctions against protest appears to be forming after a third, Royal Holloway College in Surrey, also considered a similar order against protests, the Guardian has learned.

The college, which is part of London University, dropped its legal manoeuvre after occupying students quit the vice-chancellor's building on Thursday.

Amnesty International's UK campaigns director, Tim Hancock, said: "It is worrying that universities are attempting to curb the rights of their own students to make their views known with a blanket ban on protesting on campus without prior permission. The right to peacefully express views is one that we hold very dear in the UK and is one of the basic pillars of our society." Hancock said that limitations to protest should be proportionate, adding: "It would be wrong for those very people in power to be able to forbid protests because they find them a nuisance."

Sabina Frediani, campaigns co-ordinator for Liberty, said the move was aggressive. "The right to protest is a cornerstone of our democracy and this aggressive move hardly sits well with our best British traditions of academic dissent," she said.

"Universities should be places where ideas and opinions can be explored and they should be engaging with the students in their care – not criminalising them. How exactly will taking out court orders against protest encourage future applications from aspiring undergraduates?"

Index on Censorship also condemned Birmingham's move. Editor Jo Glanville said: "This move by the University of Birmingham shows a flagrant disregard for the principles of free expression and free assembly. Protests, including sit-ins, are legitimate parts of the political debate in this country. For any institution to attempt to pre-emptively ban protest severely impedes that debate. She added that it was an "unwarranted and censorious move".

A spokesman for Birmingham University said: "The high court injunction does not prevent any peaceful protest on campus, but specifically refers to the occupation of buildings on campus and in fact peaceful protests have continued to be held on campus since the injunction was taken out. The University of Birmingham believes that universities are places of free speech and continues to respect the rights of students and staff to protest peacefully and within the law. The high court injunction prohibiting occupation on campus was sought after a student occupation in November 2011 which raised significant safety issues."

A spokesman for Sheffield University said that it had withdrawn its own interim injunction, which placed a campus-wide ban on protests without prior permission on Tuesday. "The university took on board the concerns of representatives from the students' union regarding the wording in the injunction application which was interpreted as preventing protests across the whole of campus unless permission was granted by the university. The University of Sheffield fully supports freedom of speech and the right of students to express their views peacefully and within the law."