On Saturday 1 February, students and Palestine campaigners are joining forces to call out the University of Bristol’s “double stain” on their city.
Protesters are marching to demand that the university drops its massive arms partnerships and ceases banking with bloodstained arms financier Barclays.
University of Bristol: complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide
Research by the group Demilitarise Education shows the University of Bristol has over £92m of arms industry partnerships – a colossal sum. It includes companies that supply weapons to Israel which it will have used in the recent genocide in Gaza.
These companies include Airbus, BAE Systems, Boeing, Cobham, General Dynamics, General Electric, GKN, Leonardo, Northrop Grumman, QinetiQ, Rolls Royce, and Thales.
Shockingly, the same research shows the University of Bristol is among the four biggest university arms partnerships in this country.
On top of this, the University of Bristol banks with arms financier Barclays. The company holds over £2bn in shares, and provides over £6bn in loans and underwriting to nine companies whose weapons, components and military technology Israel is using in its attacks on Palestinians.
So, on Saturday 1 February Bristol Palestine Alliance (BPA) and students will take the university to task over this.
Bristol to march again for Palestine
Starting outside Senate House at 12.30pm, protesters will assemble for an opening rally. They will then begin a march down Park Street and around Broadmead.
As the march leaves Senate House it will be led by a large banner listing £92,890,934 – the value of university’s partnerships with arms companies. Lining the sides of the road will be medical students & health professionals in “scrubs”.
Some will be holding large pictures of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan hospital – the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza. Israeli forces abducted him just a month ago and his fate is currently unknown.
Demonstrators also plan to hold large pictures of London-trained orthopaedic surgeon Dr Al-Bursh. Israel brutally tortured him to death in one of its prison camps earlier in 2024.
Others on the march will be holding pictures of Hind Rajab, the five year old Palestinian girl who Israel killed a year ago. Israeli forces fired 355 bullets into their car murdering six of her family. They also killed the two paramedics that came to rescue her.
They plan to close the rally with a mass “die-in” outside Barclays Bank.
Bankrolling war crimes: arms investments out
In May 2024, prompted by the ongoing genocide in Gaza, students protested the University of Bristol’s arms partnerships with two long-term occupations of university buildings. They followed this up with a student encampment.
Then, in November students unfurled a giant Palestine flag from the top of the iconic Cabot Tower.
Resistance from student groups is taking off once again. Last week, Bristol students disrupted degree congregations at the university.
Meanwhile, BPA has organised some twenty one major demonstrations in Bristol together with a large number of rallies, meetings and fund-raisers for Gaza.
BPA has also organised five rallies outside the new Elbit Israeli arms factory in north Bristol.
A BPA organiser said of the planned march:
On Sat 1st Feb we will be marching, calling out University of Bristol and rallying outside Barclays.
Both are bankrolling war crimes with their partnerships & investments in arms companies which supply Israel with the means to commit genocide against the Palestinians.
There are no universities left in Gaza & most schools have been destroyed. Gaza’s health system is in crisis. UoB is renowned for training medical professionals – in Gaza doctors are are being tortured & murdered & the few hospitals remaining there are barely functioning …. UoB your arms partnerships and banking choices are complicit in this.
So join us this weekend to call for an end to this city’s establishment’s involvement in genocide. Join us to put as much pressure as we can on the University to divest, and stop aiding the murder of innocent civilians.
A ‘double stain on our city’
An anonymous university student also said why they are attending the protest:
Bristol prides itself on being a environmental, progressive and ethical city. BUT the University of Bristol is massively involved in the arms industry. AND the University of Bristol banks with Barclays which also fund the arms industry.
We say this is a DOUBLE STAIN on our city! Future generations will look back with shock and disgust at what the University of Bristol is doing.
The arms industry isn’t some harmless computer game – it unleashes death, destruction and immeasurable suffering as we’ve seen in Gaza over the last fifteen months. Bristol has rightly faced up to its sordid involvement in the Slave Trade.
But the arms industry is the modern equivalent – making money out of the suffering of others. It’s so so wrong.
This immorality has no place in our otherwise proud city! University of Bristol – stop your arms partnerships now! You have no excuse not to be ethical! Please stand on the right side of history!
Adding to this, an anonymous health professional said:
Our university and medical institutions are complicit in their lack of condemnation of attacks on healthcare and education in Gaza. Even worse, they receive funding from arms manufacturers and enter into contracts with military tech companies.
We will not be silent!
Feature via Bristol Palestine Alliance.
