Earlier this afternoon, UCL Action for Palestine disrupted UCL graduations at Southbank's Royal Festival Hall.
No students will be graduating in Gaza this year. There can be no graduation as usual in a complicit institution.
Are you not ashamed that alumni Refaat Alareer who was an esteemed poet was murdered in a targeted assassination and
@ucl
have failed to even mention him yet here is
@IOE_London
putting resource into naming the department “tortured poet”.
Absolutely no class or shame.
Universities belong to students. This is why back in February we, as students and staff at
@ucl
, renamed the student centre after alum Dr Refaat Alareer who was murdered in a targeted assassination by
@israel
.
Let it be a tale 🪁
Today, UCL staff launched their BDS pledge (with 360+ signatures already!) on 76th Nakba Day.
The UCL community of staff, students and alumni could NOT be clearer -
@ucl
must commit to BDS and end ties with companies arming and supporting Israel, including an academic boycott!
solidarity with students across bloomsbury demanding an end to apartheid, genocide and occupation in palestine
our institutions cannot delay any longer!!! CUT TIES!
UK students are here and have been active.
Perhaps it’s worth asking where are UK academic staff since this shows a staff walkout? It’s time people in the UK put some action behind their tweets.
Earlier this afternoon, UCL Action for Palestine disrupted UCL graduations at Southbank's Royal Festival Hall.
No students will be graduating in Gaza this year. There can be no graduation as usual in a complicit institution.
If they're disappointed with Columbia & Harvard - don't invite people to be content with
@ucl
We have successfully occupied for 34 days and will continue to take action in the same way to hold
@ucl
to account. Don't be fooled into thinking London is supportive of genocide!
We remember Palestinians today from the complicit ivory towers of British imperialism
@ucl
Whilst staff, students and alumni unite, pressure on UCL builds. Cut ties with arms companies, Israeli institutions and commit to BDS.
We got an honourable mention in the House of Lords 🇵🇸
Join our peaceful rally today open to everyone in our joint movement for the liberation of Palestinian people. No isms no phobias tolerated ✊🏽🇵🇸❤️🔥
Earlier today, during a question on safety for UK Jews, I alerted the Lords that Columbia University encampment is coming to UCL (announced as starting on Friday). Grim for Jewish students if it brings the kind of anti-Semitic bile and threats we have seen in US.
We invite all members of the UCL community to join us in community and in solidarity with the Palestinian people at the Apartheid Free Zone in Main Quad, UCL
🚨📢RALLY THIS FRIDAY! 1pm @ MAIN QUAD 🍉🇵🇸
Our successful occupation forced the provost to agree to meet us on Friday afternoon. Let’s send him into the meeting knowing that the UCL community will always stand with Palestine.
We won’t be intimidated, until we’re liberated✊🏼✊🏾✊🏿
One of our demands is for
@ucl
to make official the renaming of Refaat Alareer Student Centre and an institutional acknowledgement of his contributions.
The banner is in the window of Jeremy Bentham Room overlooking the Refaat Alareer Student Centre 📍🫶🏽
@itranslate123
UCL ACTION FOR PALESTINE JOINS ENCAMPMENT 🏛️🇵🇸
We revive our Apartheid Free Zone as one part of a broad coalition of students sustaining a now one week long Gaza solidarity encampment 🇵🇸 POWER TO THE STUDENTS!
🇵🇸 From the river to the sea Palestine will be free 🇵🇸
Spot the complicit companies conspicuously removed from the screen halfway through our disruption…
Watch our spokesperson on
@SkyNews
with
@SkyYaldaHakim
talk about pro-Palestinian protests in the UK and why silencing and policing are systems of the same issue 🇵🇸✊🏽❤️🔥
"Why hasn't this escalation gripped the UK?" -
@SkyYaldaHakim
Discussing the pro-Palestinian protests taking place at educational establishments across the US, UCL Action for Palestine spokesperson Amna Ghaffar says the UK is taking 'more of a silencing approach'.
📺 Sky 501
Watch
@MiddleEastEye
cover
@uclafp
rally today at UCL where we continue to take action to hold UCL to account for its complicity in Israeli occupation, apartheid and genocide.
@ucl
🫡🇵🇸
Students at University College London staged a protest on Friday, expressing solidarity with Gaza and criticising what they describe as their university's “ties with genocide.” MEE spoke with one of the student organisers and a professor of Latin American Studies regarding the
After 34 days of our occupation at UCL, we have left the Jeremy Bentham room.
We leave to prepare for a wave of actions to make a new phase in our campaign against UCL’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.
Read the full statement from UCL Action for Palestine: 1/2
Update ‼️ Adham’s family managed to evacuate to Egypt with our collective efforts and fundraising.
Thanks to everyone who donated. The fundraiser is now closed!
‼️URGENT: Help evacuate the family of UCL PhD student from Gaza ‼️
Adham’s family are trapped in Gaza, their homes have been destroyed and they’ve been displaced multiple times.
We have a responsibility to help.
Link is in our bio:
Interested in UCL Action for Palestine? Want to get more involved?
Join us for a teach in with Dr Samar Maqusi this Thursday at 4pm followed by a solidarity café 5-7pm 🍉🇵🇸
Students of the University of Bristol have established an encampment jn protest of the university's complicity in Israel's genocide of Palestinians. Come join us at Royal Fort Gardens!
#FreePalestine
#UniversityofBristol
#ArmsOffCampus
UCL locked the public out on the day we held a planned rally on 26th April a week BEFORE the encampment started..
We arrived on the day to security checks to an otherwise open campus. Unions have condemned this move.
@ucl
must open the gates NOW!
Did you know
@UCL
has locked the public and journalists out of its campus to isolate the student Gaza solidarity encampment?
I was refused entry yesterday. Why isn't this this a bigger story? Indefensible.
@Fox_Claire
Hi Claire, thanks for mentioning us in the house of lords! The global student movement isn't coming to the UK, it's been here! We have been occupying and doing actions since October with no safety issues and will continue to do so! Welcome to join us later, see you at 1pm 💕 xx
Female staff at
@ucl
shave their heads to pressure university to divest from Israel.
"
@UCL
declined to comment on the protest when contacted by Middle East Eye."
Today,
@ucl
students will graduate from their studies.
All universities in Gaza have been destroyed. Palestinian students have been without an education for eight months.
@UCL
refuses to acknowledge it's ties that contribute to the genocide in Israel.
Shame.
#UCLGrad
#WeAreIOE
📢‼️ GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION ‼️📢
We are joining the global day of action with a rally to remember martyrs of Israeli genocide & Palestinians who have been displaced and exiled over the past 76 years.
JOIN US: 12PM, MAIN QUAD, UCL📍🏛️
A WIN 📢
@IOE_London
have now deleted their tweet.
Thank you to everyone who called it out for what it was. 🇵🇸🙏
Refaat Alareer, let it bring hope, let it be a tale 🪁
It wasn’t enough. It’s never been enough. We are witnessing the most inhumane violence in Rafah right now in an ongoing genocide and our institutions refused to stop this.
@ucl
shame shame shame
UCL’s class of 2024 refuse to participate in celebrations when all of Gaza’s universities have been bombed, when UCL refuses to acknowledge scholasticide and the assassination of alumnus Dr Refaat Alareer, and as long as UCL is complicit in genocide and apartheid 🎓🇵🇸
#UCLGrad
Solidarity with UCL cleaners ‼️‼️‼️
@ucl
continues to marginalise and target workers, many of whom are marginalised and vulnerable.
Please share and engage with
@IWGBUoL
🔇UCL CLEANERS VICTIMISED FOR SPEAKING UP
Cleaners at UCL’s
@IOE_London
are being spied on and disciplined, in clear retaliation for their successful campaign to force
@UCL
to give them dignified place to change.
🧵Share this thread to tell UCL to stop this attack on cleaners!
Thank you so much to everyone who came by the occupation, in solidarity, in support and offering supplies and food. We are really grateful 🫶🏽
We continue to occupy Jeremy Bentham room and we reiterate we will not leave until our demands are met.
Many observing this act of solidarity were in tears and visibly moved during the action.
We are forever grateful to the staff support of the student movement and to the women who shaved their hair off today.
@ucl
, shame on you.
A UCL alumna and daughter of Holocaust survivors shaved their head on campus today, in solidarity with Palestine and in support of the student movement, along with two staff who did the same thing, and it was one of the most powerful things I've ever witnessed
Yesterday, we marched again as
@UCL
Action for Palestine bloc for the London march for Palestine 📍🏛️🇵🇸
"Money for jobs and education, not for war and occupation"
@UCLAFP
🙏
We have at least 33 groups of UK students for Palestine across the country signing in support of action taken by
@ColumbiaSJP
We stand firm in support for students putting their bodies on the line for Palestine ✊🏽🇵🇸
We have written to UCL President & Provost Michael Spence about the targeting of Muslims, women and racialised students as part of our action last week. This is an ongoing issue of Islamophobia and racism on campus.
We won’t be silenced.
UCL will highlight the value of being a
@ucl
alumni in graduations this week.
Refaat Alareer did his MA at
@ucl
and was murdered in by Israel in December.
@ucl
valued him so much they are still working on a statement to remember him!
#UCLGrad
#WeAreIOE
URGENT ‼️ *Student have called police on the occupation for using a kite on a poster.
Police are at the occupation. Please get to Jeremy Bentham room ASAP if you can ‼️‼️‼️
A reminder that many of us at UCL Action for Palestine became involved in holding UCL to account because of UCL’s lack of reaction to Refaat AlAreer’s death.
Refaat, your words gave us hope. We hope it becomes a tale. We miss you. 🪁🇵🇸
We put forward a emergency motion at
@UCL_UCU
to support the apartheid free zone at UCL.
The union voted 96% overwhelmingly in favour of the motion. Huge thank you to the union staff and students for their support 🇵🇸‼️✅
“But one thing that these American protesters are very clear on, but we’re clear on too, is the centre of this movement isn’t London or New York or any other city, it is Gaza, it is Palestine,” UCL Action for Palestine
Since we began our occupation, we’ve been overwhelmed with support from the UCL community.
@IWGBunion
@UCL_UCU
@UCLUnison
have all passed motions to support our occupation and expressed solidarity. 1/
If UK government thinks this will die down by meeting with chancellors, they can think again. There is no returning from this. Until liberation, until we see a free Palestine 🇵🇸
UCL and SOAS have suspended student protestors in their latest attempt to embody disruptive thinking!
Join us tomorrow for a rally from SOAS to UCL to show our institutions that we won’t accept repression of students ‼️
📢 UPDATE: A WIN 🇵🇸🚨
Thanks to everyone who wrote in about this inconsiderate project. We have confirmation that this project has been withdrawn and will no longer be offered as an internship.
We are committed to dismantling the institutional exploitation of Palestine 🙏🇵🇸
We continue to witness academics benefit off the slaughter of Palestinians.
Anne Irfan
@ArtsHumsUCL
is one of them. This internship is only the latest in the de-humanisation of Palestinians at
@ucl
& the exploitation of students for skills that will line their pockets. Shame
“Universities are obligated to tell the truth”
It’s graduation season. The truth is that Palestinians in Gaza will not graduate this year. All of them (if they haven’t been killed by Israel yet) have been robbed of class & no universities to go back to as Israel destroyed them.
Shameful that
@ucl
has partnerships with this university who are so openly boasting about increased surveilling and inflicting violence on Palestinians.
Fast, Furious, and IDF-ready:
TAU's engineering students have turbocharged IDF's remote-controlled vehicles, extending their control range to tackle the harshest conditions. With a commitment to saving lives, this breakthrough promises to revolutionize battlefield strategies.
Universities normally hell-bent on emphasising democracy in institutions except when it doesn't align with their support of genocide in which they play the "not everyone agrees" card.
Students have called their bluff. Disclose and cut ties NOW.
“You don’t represent everyone on campus”. Okay. Why don’t they encamp then? Or win 89% of the vote in a record-breaking referendum (in 2 days)? Or get thousands of signatures on petitions? We won’t compromise our ethics or our proposals for some imaginary opposition. DIVEST NOW.
This letter has currently been signed by 140+ staff and 400+ alumni!
.
@ucl
must admit that the tide is turning and it is time they cut ties with arms companies and end their complicity in Israeli apartheid and genocide.
@novaramedia
@guardian
@trtworld
Incredible to see different groups across
@UCL
organising for Palestine in different ways.
For the institution to label the movement as a few rogue students couldn't be further from the truth.
UCL community demands UCL ends its involvement in the genocide.
Breaking: We mourn with you the loss of Shaimaa, the eldest daughter of our dear friend Rafat Al-Araeer
@itranslate123
, and her husband, engineer Mohammed Abdel Aziz Siyam, along with their newborn baby, after their apartment near Al-Ramal Clinic in Gaza was targeted in an
🇵🇸🚨EMAIL CAMPAIGN!
The student led Apartheid Free Zone in the Jeremy Bentham Room is now three weeks strong!
Yet UCL management have refused to acknowledge the groundswell of support for the student movement, or engage with us on any of our demands. 1/2
OCCUPATION IS ONGOING 📍
Please join us in the Apartheid Free Zone at UCL (Jeremy Bentham Room, Wilkins building) today as we demand the university end it's complicity in genocide of Palestinians. See our full demands below ⬇️
UCL Action for Palestine marched as a bloc for the first time at the national demo yesterday alongside PYM 🙏🏽✨
Who spotted our banner? 🫶🏽🇵🇸‼️
#ShutItDown4Palestine
Solidarity with Columbia students in their brave action at holding their university to account for complicity in Israeli genocide.
We have donated to funds and will continue to support them in any ways we can.
In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians🇵🇸
Despite arrests, Columbia students are still going strong at this historic anti-genocide encampment on the university campus. They are demanding that Columbia divest from the Zionist regime and their numbers are steadily growing.
Universities uphold academic freedom everywhere - not just London, the UK or Europe but also in Palestine where all universities have been destroyed and over 100 academics murdered by Israel.
It is a moral obligation of universities to call out this scholasticide in Palestine.
.
@ucl
and other UK universities should resist pressure to issue statements on either side of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Universities are not campaigning organisations.
It's been six months since Dr Refaat Alareer was murdered by Israel.
@ucl
have yet to even utter his name.
Dr Refaat Alareer, we remember and honour you.
Here is a link to his wonderful TED talk.
In today's episode of "Disruptive Thinking Since 1826",
@ucl
has suspended seven students from the encampment for their protest.
We cannot allow UCL Provost and management to suspend students silently whilst they continue to partner with companies complicit in genocide.
🚨EMERGENCY RALLY AT UCL🚨
UCL has suspended 7 students from the encampment for their protest against the university's complicity in genocide.
Rally at 8:30pm tonight to support the students. Please get there if you can
Universities are obliged to tell the truth.
@ucl
when will you acknowledge this scholasticide and stop partnering with Israeli institutions whilst ignoring the destruction of Palestinian universities?
“Universities are obligated to tell the truth”
It’s graduation season. The truth is that Palestinians in Gaza will not graduate this year. All of them (if they haven’t been killed by Israel yet) have been robbed of class & no universities to go back to as Israel destroyed them.
UCL President & Provost claimed there to be no evidence of genocide in the courts a few weeks ago.
Last week, the courts told Israel to STOP the violence and blood shed. It did not.
@ucl
CUT THE TIES NOW NOW NOW
UCL President & Provost continues to use inflammatory language against the students in the encampment rather than engage with the demands of the university community.
@ucl
need to rectify their actions
Our statement in solidarity with the UCL student encampment and the wrongfully suspended student activists.
We encourage our fellow alumni to email UCL in protest of the unfair suspension. Further details of the escalation can be found in our full statement.
#UCLAlumni
Students and workers are united.
@ucl
need to admit they cannot win this fight. Time is up. End our institutions complicity in Israeli genocide and apartheid.
The UCL Action for Palestine occupation will be marching as a bloc on Saturday for the national demo in London.
Share w friends and family! Hope to see you all there
#ShutItDown4Palestine
I learnt about archival research at
@TheBartlettUCL
. In one assignment on the non-stop student protests against Apartheid in the 80s, I found this news piece on UCL's desicion to-at last-divest from Apartheid South Africa. It's time for
@UCL
to do the same with
#ApartheidIsrael
.
We draw your attention to the following:
"Every individual victory is won collectively by the global solidarity movement. We know that our power does not come from secret negotiations but from the strength of our movement on the streets and in university campuses."
ANNOUNCEMENT 🚨
A UCL Action for Palestine representative will be on
@SkyNews
live at 9pm tonight talking about student movements in the UK and US.
Tune in here to show your support! 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸
Taking over Hamilton Hall as done in 1968, Columbia students unfurl a banner that reads "Hind's Hall," in reference to Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces.
Hundreds of students cheer as the banner is revealed, erupting into chants to "Free Palestine."
On Nakba Day, we held a vigil at midday remembering Palestinians displaced since 1948 and in the ongoing genocide.
We laid candles down whilst naming villages destroyed during the Nakba in 1948. We read literature from Palestinian poets and writers. 🍉🇵🇸
UCL only likes disruptive thinking in the past. In the present, it punishes students who embody the values they promote.
Michael Spence can't continue to punish protestors when in years to come these actions will be platformed at UCL.
Sign our statement:
This is why eugenics was able to thrive at UCL and cause so much damage to the world as we see it today.
What's wrong is wrong is wrong. An institution's reputation does not come above the genocide of a people.
Reputation and prestige are hard to build and it takes ages, for universities literally centuries, whereas those can be squandered in a heartbeat through a rush of activism (or anti-activism) that may well look misguided, if not foolish, in the not so distant future.
10/
625,000 students in Gaza are without a place of education due to the past seven months of Israeli genocide that destoryed all unis.
@ucl
@ioe_london
is complicit.
Special moments on hold whilst we mourn the 35,000+ dead, many more injured and displaced.
#UCLGrad
#WeAreIOE
Our class of 2024 is graduating! 🎓
Congratulations to our postgraduate students from
@IOE_London
enjoying this special moment today.
We wish you a wonderful time celebrating with your friends and loved ones. ✨
#UCLGrad
#WeAreIOE
UCL believes in disagreeing well so why are they stopping students from expressing their support for Palestine at graduation?
@ucl
🇵🇸
#UCLGrad
#WeAreIOE
‼️URGENT: Help evacuate the family of UCL PhD student from Gaza ‼️
Adham’s family are trapped in Gaza, their homes have been destroyed and they’ve been displaced multiple times.
We have a responsibility to help.
Link is in our bio:
Day 6 of the Apartheid Free Zone - we had a day filled with community building, teach-in on connecting gaza genocide with eugenics AND capoeira class ft. the history of anticolonial politics of capoeira 🍉💫
So grateful for this community and all the support. Free Palestine!
If students can put their education on the line for Palestine, why is it considered radical for staff to only tweet solidarity? It's not enough.
Put your job on the line for Palestine.
UCL's social media team trying to censor outrage at their position, comms and complicity in the genocide in Gaza.
This does not represent the reality of how angry and disappointed students, staff and alumni
@ucl
are. Stop pretending we don't exist
@ucl
URGENT ‼️ *Student have called police on the occupation for using a kite on a poster.
Police are at the occupation. Please get to Jeremy Bentham room ASAP if you can ‼️‼️‼️
March is Israeli Apartheid Month. We reiterate and intensify our demands for UCL to end its complicity in genocide!
Join us for movement building and teach-in with UCL Action for Palestine
📍 13th March, 1pm, South Cloisters
It’s an honour to present to you:
The Refaat Alareer Student Centre 📍
We are incredibly proud and honoured that Refaat was a part and will always remain a part of our community.
@itranslate123