Manchester Students remember Ken Saro-Wiwa in University Shell protest

Stu­dents from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter held a memo­r­i­al protest in remem­brance of Niger­ian human rights activists who were killed by the Niger­ian mil­i­tary in 1995. The protest high­light­ed the new part­ner­ship to research bio­fu­els between the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter and Shell.

Shell logo burningStu­dents from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter held a memo­r­i­al protest in remem­brance of Niger­ian human rights activists who were killed by the Niger­ian mil­i­tary in 1995. The protest high­light­ed the new part­ner­ship to research bio­fu­els between the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter and Shell.

STUDENTS HANG MEMORIAL EFFIGY IN UNIVERSITY SHELL PROTEST

Mon­day 10th Novem­ber 2008

Stu­dents from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter held a memo­r­i­al protest in remem­brance of a Niger­ian human rights activist who were killed by the Niger­ian mil­i­tary in 1995. Novem­ber 10th marked the 13th anniver­sary of the exe­cu­tion of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight oth­er activists.[1]

Shell oil com­pa­ny will be tak­en to court this Feb­ru­ary 2009, charged with com­plic­i­ty in his mur­der. ( http://www.unpo.org/content/view/8792/236/)

The protest high­light­ed the new part­ner­ship between the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter and Shell. [2] (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/business/s/1068530_shell_and_manchester_universitys_biofuels_project)

The group held ban­ners read­ing ‘Remem­ber Ken Saro-Wiwa mur­dered on behalf of Shell on 13th of Novem­ber 1995’ and ‘Shell oper­at­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter’ out­side the Man­ches­ter Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Bio­cen­tre. They also dis­played an effi­gy of Ken Saro-Wiwa as a pow­er­ful reminder of the exe­cu­tion of the envi­ron­men­tal and human rights activist.

Phi­los­o­phy stu­dent Gabriel Has­san said, “Until Shell sort out their human rights record and stop dev­as­tat­ing the envi­ron­ment with their oil projects they have no busi­ness being on cam­pus. Ken Saro-Wiwa was a man who stood up to the ruin brought upon his peo­ple in Nige­ria by Shell and for that Shell had him hung. This is the kind of the thing that the uni­ver­si­ty was always going to turn a blind eye to though.”

The group asked if some­one from the Insti­tu­tion could explain the eth­i­cal prob­lems con­cern­ing the University’s part­ner­ship with Shell but were told to speak to the University’s press office. The press office sug­gest­ed writ­ing a let­ter to Pres­i­dent and Vice-Chan­cel­lor Alan Gilbert. The group will deliv­er an open let­ter to the Vice-Chan­cel­lor ask­ing for an expla­na­tion.

Secu­ri­ty were called and removed the ban­ners from the Uni­ver­si­ty build­ing wall. Some stu­dents remained to fly­er out­side. Mean­while anoth­er group retrieved the ban­ner and dis­played them high up on a lamp­post on the oth­er side of the build­ing on Princess Street.

The stu­dent group held a dis­cus­sion on the role of Shell in the Niger Delta and Ross­port lat­er that evening attend­ed by around 100 peo­ple.

( http://www.corribsos.com/)

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NOTES TO THE EDITOR

[1] Ken Saro-Wiwa was a leader in the protest against the dev­as­ta­tion of the Ogo­ni peo­ple’s home­land in Nige­ria caused by oil extrac­tion projects run by Shell and Chevron. For more infor­ma­tion about Ken Saro-Wiwa and the cir­cum­stances of his exe­cu­tion vis­it http://www.remembersarowiwa.com/

[2] Shell is one of 17 com­pa­nies work­ing with The Cen­tre of Excel­lence in Bio­catal­y­sis, Bio­trans­for­ma­tions and Bio­cat­alyt­ic Man­u­fac­ture (CoEBio3) based at The Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter. See http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/archive/list/item/?id=3983&year=2008&month=09 and http://www.student-direct.co.uk/2008/10/shelling-out/ for more infor­ma­tion.

Man­ches­ter Cam­paigns Col­lec­tive
mcrcampaignscollective@gmail.com