No to 'lasting partnerships' with police: No to spying on campus.

No to 'lasting partnerships' with police: No to spying on campus.

Proposed by: John Angliss

Seconded by: Clare Solomon

This Union Notes that:

1. The City of London Police approached the Students' Union with the view to establishing"lasting partnerships" with "senior members of counter-terrorism operations"
   for "future collaboration" with SOAS students through the Home Office's PREVENT programme.

2. After long discussions the Students' Union (SU) executive voted no to this proposal

3. We passed a motion last year saying no to spying on campus.

4. Several SOAS students have been approached with the offer of £100 to attend meetings of various societies and feed back information

5. Five SOAS students this term have been either harassed, arrested and/or handled roughly by the police.

6. The City of London Police specialise in three areas, one of them being Terrorism.

7. The government is considering plans that would lead to thousands more British Muslims being branded as extremists (Ref: the Guardian 17 Feb 2009)

8. The Centre for Social Cohesion has also issued an extremely right-wing report which manipulated SOAS students comments (Islam on Campus: A survey of UK student opinions-CFSC June 2008)

9. Even the NUS warned us that we had been mentioned in this report numerous times and that we might face...

10. SOAS SU has procedures in place that ensure societies and their speakers follow guidelines.

11. The SU officers are elected and therefore can be held accountable

12. If police are needed on campus SOAS SU is capable of deciding when and where.

This Union Believes that:

1. This proposal is nothing short of an attempt to encourage SOAS students to spy on their fellow students and to recruit SOAS students to the police force.

2. This programme will only serve to help the police identify students and further put them at risk

3. SOAS Students' Union or the school should not be used to spend money on what is thepolice's job to do. We should not be asked to do their dirty work: we will not spy on students

4. Focus groups are groups of students who are not elected and, therefore, undemocratic and can not be held accountable.

5. SOAS has no control of what or how information is utilised or disseminated

6. Muslim students are under increasing suspicion which leads to being fearful to speak out against war and oppression

7. That a Students' Union should have a say over how its University money is spent

This Union Further Believes that:

1. If SOAS students want to join the police there are many ways to do this without having SOAS Students' Union using time and resources to do this.

2. Asking students and lecturers to spy on each other creates divisions and mistrust.

This Union resolves to:

1. Uphold and support the SU executives decision not to engage in this process

2. Oppose further attempts by the police to engage with our students for propaganda purposes

3. Reserve the right to decide when and where we invite the Police onto campus

4. Defend students who have been victims of police intimidation