# bdsatucl.com > Staff BDS movement at UCL ## Posts - [Open Letter to Qesser ZUhrah](https://bdsatucl.com/open-letter-to-qesser-zuhrah/): Dear Qesser, We, the BDS@UCL organising group (made up of staff at UCL), write to you at this hour in unequivocal solidarity with you and all your courageous comrades currently on hunger strike across British prisons  as part of the larger movement for a free Palestine. As you reach 45 days of your hunger strike, we are deeply concerned that appropriate care and legal justice has been denied to you, as well as contact with your family.  We are outraged by the injustice committed by the government, police and judicial system by holding you in prison for over a year without charge, and denying […] - [Video - The Legacy of Dr Refaat Alareer: Pedagogy and Liberation](https://bdsatucl.com/video-the-legacy-of-dr-refaat-alareer-pedagogy-and-liberation/): This video was compiled by the BDS @ UCL Organising Group in remembrance of UCL alumnus (MA Comparative Literature, 2007) Dr Refaat Alareer, a beloved Palestinian poet and educator from Gaza. Drawn from many of his public lectures, Dr. Refaat’s words remind us of the strength and resistance found in poetry and literature. The video was shown at an event titled “The Legacy of Dr Refaat Alareer: Pedagogy and Liberation”, held at UCL on 5th December 2025 as part of a day of commemorative events marking two years since he was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike, along with several members of […] - [In honour of Dr Refaat Alareer](https://bdsatucl.com/in-honour-of-dr-refaat-alareer/): In honour of UCL alumnus (Comparative Literature MA, 2007), distinguished Palestinian poet and educator Dr. Refaat Alareer, staff from across UCL departments have come together to organise a day of commemorative events in his memory. This occasion also marks the second anniversary of his assassination on 6 December 2023. From intimate writing workshops for UCL students to a public gathering that centres the voices of those who knew Dr Refaat best, the day offers a space to remember, reflect and continue learning from his teaching, his words and the enduring impact of his work. Booking free but essential.​​ 5th December […] - [AI Kills - Google OUT!](https://bdsatucl.com/ai-kills-google-out/): On Friday 14 Nov, UCL staff, students and alumni gathered at UCL’s Donor Wall where UCL celebrates @googledeepmind as a £1m+ donor. GDM develops and supplies technology for Google’s £1.2b AI and cloud computing deal with the Israeli military and government, Project Nimbus. This technology has facilitated the killing of Palestinians at an unprecedented rate. UCL’s stated ambition is to “change the world for the better… for the long term benefit of humanity”. Yet it continues to honour GDM, and maintain deep and ongoing ties with a company actively complicit in a genocide touted as “the first AI war”. A […] - [Sign the petition - Google Out!](https://bdsatucl.com/sign-the-petition-google-out/): In 2016, UCL awarded an Honorary Fellowship to UCL alumnus Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind. These are supposed to be awarded to individuals who reflect “the values and ethos of UCL”. Yet the Israeli military use Google’s cloud infrastructure and AI technology – developed by DeepMind – to support their genocide in Palestine. The UN describes Alphabet, Google’s parent company, as “central to the Israeli surveillance apparatus and the ongoing Gaza destruction”. Hassabis openly supports the use of DeepMind’s AI in state military applications. Now DeepMind workers are unionising in protest. These behaviours do NOT represent the […] - [Letter to the Provost](https://bdsatucl.com/letter-to-the-provost/): To UCL President & Provost Michael Spence, We are writing on behalf of the 937 UCL staff who have signed a pledge committing to the terms of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement to raise our urgent concerns about the potential of legal risk and reputational damage to UCL given its close ties to Google DeepMind and its parent companies. The BDS movement mobilises international solidarity towards ending Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, apartheid regime, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. A core element of the pledge is to refuse to participate in any […] - [End UCL’s ties with Google DeepMind!](https://bdsatucl.com/end-ucls-ties-with-google-deepmind/): Join BDS@UCL for a workshop to:   Workshops will be from 1pm to 2pm on: 🗓️ Tuesday 28th October, UCL GOSICH – Wolfson Centre, Room 11 🗓️ Wednesday 29th October, UCL GOSICH – Wolfson Centre, Room 11 🗓️ Thursday 30th October, UCL GOSICH – Wolfson Centre, Room 11 🗓️ Friday 31st October, IOE 20 Bedford Way, Room 731  Everyone welcome! (no registration necessary) - [BDS@UCL Launches campaign to cut UCL'S TIES WITH Google](https://bdsatucl.com/bdsucl-launches-campaign-to-cut-ucls-ties-with-google/): For the 2025-2026 academic year, BDS@UCL is launching a campaign to ask UCL to cut its ties with Google DeepMind, because Google DeepMind and its parent companies, Google and Alphabet, have become deeply complicit in aiding and abetting Israeli genocide, ethnic cleansing, occupation and apartheid in Palestine As signatories of the BDS@UCL pledge, we oppose UCL links with all complicit corporations. We are focusing our primary BDS campaign this year on Google DeepMind because: Our campaign is calling on UCL to cut all ties with Google DeepMind and focuses, in particular, on these core demands: Get involved with the BDS@UCL […] - [Google DeepMind and UCL - UPDATED](https://bdsatucl.com/google-deepmind-and-ucl/): *NEW* Updated report! Read the full report (May 2025). Read the original report (June 2024). - [Algorithms of Genocide](https://bdsatucl.com/algorithms-of-genocide/): Join us for a critical discussion with a guest academic speaker and Vikram, a former Google employee and organizer with No Tech for Apartheid, to examine the deep entanglement between UCL and Google and their role in supporting the Israeli war machine. We will release an updated complicity report on UCL and Google and strategize ways to disrupt our institution’s support for this violence and mobilize for accountability, transparency and ethical tech on campus. As previous research from the BDS@UCL group has shown, UCL maintains a deep and long-standing relationship with Google subsidiary DeepMind—funding scholarships, faculty positions, and joint research—while also holding nearly […] - [Victory against repression of Palestine advocacy](https://bdsatucl.com/victory-against-repression-of-palestine-advocacy/): Yesterday, a packed room of UCL staff and students were privileged to hear Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and renowned international lawyer, deliver a powerful talk on the topic of genocide against Palestinians and the path to international accountability. Ms Albanese educated and inspired us to continue building our solidarity with the Palestinian people, including by holding UCL accountable for its complicity with Israel’s genocide, illegal occupation and apartheid system against Palestinians.  The urgency of this event was underlined as we awoke yesterday morning to the horrifying news that Israel has restarted its genocidal bombing […] - [From Surveillance to Sovereignty: Strategies Towards Ethical Tech for Palestine](https://bdsatucl.com/from-surveillance-to-sovereignty-strategies-towards-ethical-tech-for-palestine/): Tuesday, 11th March 2025 Iftar snacks 6pm; Panel and workshop 6.30-8pm Join the BDS@UCL group to explore the role of technology in both enabling and resisting genocide.  Learn from researchers and experienced tech insiders how tech companies and digital infrastructures contribute to oppressive systems. Explore effective strategies for advancing tech divestment at UCL to break ties with apartheid.  You will hear directly from researcher We’am Hamden (University of Cambridge), as well as former Cisco employees and campaigners from No Azure for Apartheid, who are actively challenging the industry’s complicity and harnessing its potential for justice and liberation.  For background: Register here. - [UCL divests from Ametek](https://bdsatucl.com/ucl-divests-from-ametek/): President and Provost Michael Spence has confirmed that UCL no longer holds shares in Ametek—a global military equipment company complicit in Israel’s genocide in Palestine and war crimes across the world. This marks a significant victory, achieved after persistent pressure from staff and students who have been demanding this for months. However, our work is far from over. UCL still has many other unethical investments and still maintains ties with other arms companies profiting from war, occupation, and human rights abuses. Divesting from Ametek is just one step – UCL must go further in ensuring its investments are ethical. We […] - [Win! Review of UCL's research and other ties](https://bdsatucl.com/win-review-of-ucls-research-and-other-ties/): UCL council has agreed to support the motion presented by staff and students to review UCL’s research partnerships and other links with states, institutions and companies who have violated fundamental international law.  This comes after UCL council agreed to review UCL’s investments in November. Both of these wins follow the overwhelming support by the Academic Board of a paper proposing the investigation of UCL’s links to states, institutions, companies and other bodies involved in genocide and crimes against humanity.  We applaud this decision by UCL council and remain committed to ensuring that this review culminates in the severing of research […] - [Panel Discussion](https://bdsatucl.com/panel-discussion/): Panel Discussion: Where Next for Palestinian Liberation Mon 3rd Feb, 6-8pm Join Omar Barghouti, founder of the BDS Movement, and students and workers from UCL to discuss the next steps for the movement for Palestinian liberation on our campuses. The steadfastness of the Palestinian people has defeated Israel’s attempts to re-occupy Gaza and won a ceasefire. Universities have witnessed unprecedented mobilisations in solidarity with Palestine which have made giant strides towards divestment and ending universities’ complicity in Israel apartheid, colonialism and genocide. At this critical juncture, we’ll be taking stock of the achievements of the last fifteen months and asking […] - [Joint statement on ceasefire agreement](https://bdsatucl.com/joint-statement-on-ceasefire-agreement/): As UCL staff, students, and alumni united in solidarity with Palestine, we welcome the news of a ceasefire and celebrate Palestinian steadfastness in resisting a genocide and Israel’s attempts to divide and colonise. We hope this ceasefire endures, though Israel’s history of violating such agreements, evident in its ongoing breaches of the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon, demands much caution. Now, more than ever, Palestine needs our continuing solidarity to ensure a permanent ceasefire and justice in the face of the mass destruction and genocide that has unfolded in Gaza in the last 15 months. But a ceasefire is not enough! […] - [UCL & Ametek](https://bdsatucl.com/ucl-ametek/): Read the full report. - [ucl power analysis](https://bdsatucl.com/ucl-power-analysis/): Read the full report. - [cisco & UCL](https://bdsatucl.com/cisco-ucl/): Read the full report. - [Rolls Royce and UCL](https://bdsatucl.com/rolls-royce-and-ucl/): Read the full report here.  - [Breaking! UCL Council agree to review investments](https://bdsatucl.com/breaking-ucl-council-agree-to-review-investments/): A joint statement by Action for Palestine (AFP), BDS at UCL, Jews for Palestinian Justice, UCL Stands 4 Justice UCL Council (the university’s highest decision-making body) has agreed to support the joint student-staff initiative to establish a review, with student and staff representation, into UCL’s investments. We applaud this decision, and are committed to working closely with UCL to ensure we fully end any and all complicity in our university with Israeli genocide in Gaza.  This is a significant milestone for the unified mass movement for Palestinian liberation at UCL. Over the past year, students have occupied a lecture hall […] - [UCL's Philanthropic Partners](https://bdsatucl.com/ucls-philanthropic-partners/): Read the full report here. - [airbus and ucl](https://bdsatucl.com/air-bus-and-ucl/): Read the full report. - [Intel and UCL](https://bdsatucl.com/intel-and-ucl/): Read the full report. - [Campus Voices for Palestine](https://bdsatucl.com/campus-voices-for-palestine/): Friday, 1st November 2024 at 3:00 PM Online or Leolin Price Lecture theatre, 30 Guilford Street,  London,  WC1E 6BT (view map) REGISTRATION IS ESSENTIAL “We built these universities from tents. And from tents, with the support of our friends, we will rebuild them once again.”Unified Call from Palestinian academics and administrators of Gaza Universities, 29 April 2024 Join us to hear first-hand from Palestinian academics and campaigners about how Palestinian Higher Education institutions are resisting erasure through the collective work of the Emergency Committee of Universities in Gaza and their respective efforts to continue teaching and learning, despite the physical destruction of university campuses […] - [UCL & BAE SYSTEMS](https://bdsatucl.com/ucl-bae-systems/): Read the full report here. - [UCL, Barclays and genocide](https://bdsatucl.com/ucl-barclays-and-genocide/): Read the full report. - [UCL Ties with Israeli universities](https://bdsatucl.com/ucl-ties-with-israeli-universities/): Read the full report. - [UCL Investments](https://bdsatucl.com/ucl-investments/): Today, we launch the first in a series of research reports, starting with UCL’s investment portfolio, which uncovers UCL’s complicity in Israel’s violence and crimes against Palestinians. Read the full report here. - [A win for Palestine!](https://bdsatucl.com/a-win-for-palestine/): On 1 July 2024, UCL’s Academic Board voted overwhelmingly to support student and staff recommendations urging Council to act against war crimes, violations of international human rights law, and scholasticide, including against the Palestinian people. 75% support:Establishing a review body to examine and report on all of UCL’s ties with arms companies and other relevant industries involved in providing weapons to states under investigation for genocide or crimes against humanity, particularly where this involves the killing of academics and/or the targeting and destruction of academic institutions. 74% support:Reviewing and reporting UCL’s ties with or investment in organisations that actively support […] - [Scholasticide: What is it and why should we care?](https://bdsatucl.com/scholasticide-what-is-it-and-why-should-we-care/): Tuesday 4th June 202412:00 to 13:30 (UK time)on Zoom: https://ucl.zoom.us/j/98535704018 Theatre of the Privileged Decolonial Cafe and SWANA Forum for Social Justice (both networks at the UCL IOE) are co-hosting a Special Event in the Decolonial Conversation Series this Tuesday 4th June at 12pm on Scholasticide: What is it and why should we care?  We will use our 90 mins to think about terms like ‘scholasticide’ and ‘decolonisation and decoloniality’, and how these concepts relate to our work (teaching, learning, research and citizenship) at Higher Education Institutes in the global north. We have inspirational thinkers and speakers willing to share their insights into and experiences with […] - [UCL staff and alumna shave their heads in solidarity](https://bdsatucl.com/shaving-heads/): On Wednesday 15th May at 2pm, two staff members and one alumni of UCL publicly shaved their heads on UCL main campus, Gower Street, London, in protest of the institution’s silence on the scholasticide that has unfolded in Gaza and its complicity through its ties with companies, institutions and banks that support the state of Israel and hence the ongoing apartheid and genocide being committed via its policies and military action. This act was inspired by the eleven women who shaved their heads outside of UK Parliament in March this year to protest the water and food blockade of Gaza […] - [We are the university](https://bdsatucl.com/we-are-the-university/): Rachel Rosen Welcome to our Solidarity Town Hall: UCL staff commit to BDS on Nakba Day. You may be aware that yesterday UCL’s provost sent out a letter suggesting it can be ‘complicated’ to tell whether investments and research partnerships are ethical. Well, we stand here today, respectfully, collectively, and resoundingly ‘disagreeing well’ with Spence and UCL’s senior leadership. We are here today: One of the things that students around the world are showing us (including those students here today) is that management is not the university. We – staff and students – are the university. If our senior leadership […] - [Marking Nakba Day 2024](https://bdsatucl.com/marking-nakba-day-2024/): Izzat Darwazeh The 15th of May 1948, the Palestine Nakba Day, is an evocative day for all Palestinians. It has been commemorated, I’d say, by every Palestinian, everywhere, every year for the past 76 years. We say our Nakba (and I’d better say what it means as UCL seems to object to Palestinian and Arabic words – Nakba means catastrophe) is not just a day, but a continuing process for all these years. It started towards the end of 1947 when Zionist military and paramilitary groups started terrorist attacks on hundreds of Palestinian villages and towns with the aim of […] - [Staff launch BDS pledge](https://bdsatucl.com/bds-pledge-launch/) - [Solidarity Town Hall](https://bdsatucl.com/solidarity-town-hall-15-may-2024/) - [In conversation: The Role of Israeli Higher Education in Palestinian Oppression](https://bdsatucl.com/the-role-of-israeli-higher-education-in-palestinian-oppression/): Friday 3rd May 2024, 3-5pm Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, UCL Register here. Israeli universities have long enjoyed a reputation as liberal bastions of freedom and democracy. Drawing on extensive research and making Hebrew sources accessible to the international community, Maya Wind shatters this myth. Her new book, Towers of Ivory and Steel, is a powerful expose of Israeli academia’s ongoing and active complicity in Israel’s settler-colonial project. In this talk, Maya Wind will draw on the book to demonstrate how academic disciplines, degree programs, campus infrastructure, and research laboratories all service Israeli occupation and apartheid, while universities violate the rights of Palestinians to education, stifle critical scholarship, and violently […] ## Pages - [Complicity reports](https://bdsatucl.com/complicity-reports/) - [Resources](https://bdsatucl.com/resources/) - [About us](https://bdsatucl.com/about-us/) - [BDS pledge](https://bdsatucl.com/bds_pledge/) - [Home](https://bdsatucl.com/home/) - [News and Events](https://bdsatucl.com/) [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)