We stand in firm opposition towards the treatment of students at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University in London. The student’s right to protest the ongoing genocide in Gaza as declared by the International Court of Justice in 2024 has been denied through both physical and verbal means, persecuting students and those who stand in support with them.
Three members of the SOAS Liberated Zone for Gaza are on trial and face imprisonment after being brutalized by police on campus, SOAS has expelled a student who is still facing further disciplinary sanctions, and is trying to expell six more for questioning the SOAS Student’s Union CEO Irfan Zaman about SOAS’ complicity in the genocide in Gaza. Two of these six are also facing two more disciplinary sanctions simply for participating in peaceful protests and calling out director Adam Habib over his repressive actions. SOAS’ SU has also dismissed two democratically elected Student’s Union Co-Presidents 2024/25 for their campaigning against an ongoing genocide in Gaza and criticism of university and SU management in their complicity of this genocide.
SOAS invests over £6 million pounds in the genocide and colonisation of the Palestinian people, including in companies involved in the production of white phosphorus, used in war crimes to burn the skin of Palestinians and surveillance technologies used to racially profile Palestinians and implement apartheid in the West Bank.
As a higher education institution, SOAS University has a responsibility to not only safeguard students – in which it has severely failed – but also to facilitate an open and democratic space for discussion and free expression. We cannot allow a precedent to be set that allows our universities to violently silence students when we hold them accountable for their crimes.
We stand together in condemnation of SOAS’ complicity in the genocide and colonisation of the Palestinian people and in support of the students fighting to end this complicity.
Signed
Leeds Student Against Apartheid Coalition
Cymru Students for Palestine
Bangor Collective for Palestine
Portsmouth Gaza Encampment
Newcastle Apartheid Off Campus
University of Lincoln Students for Palestine
Warwick Stands With Palestine
Nottingham Camp for the Liberation of Palestine
UAL Students for Justice in Palestine
LSE Liberated Zone
University of Leicester Palestine Society
LJMU Students for Palestine Society
Students of Alareer Square (Liverpool Encampment)
Sheffield Campus Coalition for Palestine (SCCP)
Falmouth and Exeter Palestine Solidarity Encampment
Manchester Camp of Resistance for Palestine
Manchester Leftist Action
