Today SOAS students began a campaign against their canteen in support of immigration detainees. There are currently at least 20 detainees on hunger strike in Harmondsworth detention centre, an immigration concentration camp notorious for its appauling conditions. There were riots against conditions in Harmondsworth in July 2004 and a detainee committed suicide there in January 2006. After discovering that the same company (SODEXHO) which abuses detainees in Harmondsworth also runs their university canteen students decided to organise a boycott.

The contract to run the SOAS catering facilities is currently up for renewal, but the SOAS administration has refused to consult with students and will not disclose the time or location of this meeting, possibly since they know how many students would protest against SODEXHO. So instead students have begun picketing the canteen, calling on their fellow students and staff to eat elsewhere until all hungerstriking detainees have their demands met or until the canteen comes under new management.

This campaign has won the support of the lecturers and students unions, who have been campaigning to get SODEXHO of campus for many years. A number of customers in the canteen have pledged not to eat there again after learning of the companies unsavoury practices. Students are now planning to distribute free food on friday outside the canteen to tempt away those remaining students whose consciences have not already driven them elsewhere.

You can support our campaign by contacting the schools director and telling him the dammage that is being done to SOAS reputation by its association with a company that abuses refugees and migrants.

Director & Principal, Professor Colin Bundy
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7637 2388 Fax: +44 (0)20 7436 3844