ED EMERY – 25 YEARS AT SOAS
– NOW BANNED
ON THREAT OF HAVING THE
POLICE CALLED ON HIM
THE FIGHT FOR REINSTATEMENT
BEGINS
THIS IS A CALL FOR
A GLOBAL BOYCOTT
OF SOAS & ALL OF ITS ACTIVITIES
Ed Emery – Playing fiddle
on TUC demo – “Musicate, Agitate, Educate!”
This whole story is so
unutterably tedious that I hesitate to bore you with it. But since SOAS has now
become a monkey circus run by a management team that is mendacious, totally
devoid of transparency and answerable to nobody, the time has come to make a
stand.
On 23 December I arrived at SOAS
to do my usual research work in the Library (on Arab and Jewish dance songs of
al-Andalus). I was met by two security men who
informed me that I have been BANNED FROM SOAS, and also that they have CANCELLED
MY ALUMNUS STATUS (MMus, 2009) and also that they have BANNED ME FROM
THE LIBRARY, an access to which I have a right, as a SOAS alumnus, and
which is the filthiest thing of all.
The story, in short, is that Mr
IRFAN ZAMAN (loud vomiting noises), the paid and unelected manager
of the SOAS Student Union, has mobilised a long-running personal campaign
against me, arising out of my attempts to organise good music-making at SOAS.
For those who don’t know me, that includes the Famous SOAS Ceilidh
Band, the SOAS Rebetiko Band, the
SOAS Guerrilla Choir. In other activities I also organise the SOAS Donkey
Conference, the SOAS Elephant Conference and the SOAS Camel Conference [check “Flickr – Camel Conference” on the Internet]. I am also an
Honorary Member of the SOAS Student Union for life, having been elected to that
position by the Student Union in 2015.
Zaman found his opportunity at the end of last year. He
instituted a disciplinary procedure against me because I came and stood on the
front steps of SOAS during Freshers Fayre and played my violin for three minutes, intending to
invite new students to join the SOAS Ceilidh Band, as
I have been doing every year for the past 20 years. He claimed, pitifully, that
this was a Health and Safety hazard. His manifest intention, explicitly
expressed in letters to me and others, has been to get me banned from SOAS, in
the same way that he has motivated the banning, sackings, suspensions and
expulsions of our brave student activists.
At this point Laura Hammond
steps into the picture. Deputy Vice-Chancellor R&K, for
those who don’t know her.
For more than ten years I have
been a well-respected Research Associate in the Centre for Migration and
Diaspora Studies at SOAS (CMDS). On 15 December 2025
Now, among other things, I am the
organiser of the biennial SOAS Shit Conference, an official and ongoing SOAS
conference. For our second biennial conference in November 2025 I prepared a
paper entitled “An ethnography of toilet
practices at the
Very briefly: Ms Hammond added to
Mr Zaman’s pitiful case by launching several
accusations against me. I answer them briefly here. A more detailed account
will follow later..
1. That I had not informed the
CMDS Centre about my shit research at SOAS. This is a lie. I wrote to
2. Ms. Hammond wrote to me on 29
October 2025 to say: “I
do not see this research as being in any way relevant to the Centre for
Migration and Diaspora Studies, so it would seem to sit outside the remit of
your existing role as Research Associate” in the Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies.
Her position can only be defined
as blinding stupidity. I replied, pointing out the very obvious fact that SOAS
is a hub for international students from all across the world, each with
different customs, habits and expectations regarding toilet practices and what
they will encounter at their university in
3. That I have not undergone
ethical training to present research at SOAS. Reply: At no point in the past 11
years has anyone ever told me that as a Research Associate I have to undergo
ethical training. Furthermore, on 15 November 2023 Ms Hammond was present (as
chair) at the meeting that I conducted at SOAS, for the CMDS, presenting my
research on migrant musics. At no point did she ever mention
this requirement. In short, she has now conjured up this requirement as a
mechanism for expelling me from SOAS. Dirty tricks.
SOAS management has mobilised a
case against me, built on a whole series of lies and fabrications.
Specifically, the Investigator’s Report into my case states that there is a
“discrepancy” in Mr Zaman’s submission to the SOAS
Executive – where he claimed that I had been “abusive” to staff. The staff
themselves said specifically that I had NOT been abusive. If true, it
appears that Zaman lied to the Executive, I have
demanded an institutional inquiry and a written apology, but they have blocked
this.
Most specifically, however, is
the fact that SOAS management has banned me from the SOAS Library. This
is a national research library. They have no grounds to ban me from using it,
and my access to its Arabic and Hebrew texts is vital for my ongoing and ground-breaking
research.
From that point of view (and a
little reluctantly, because once upon a time we loved this place), we – I, and
the colleagues who are supporting me – are issuing an international public call
for
A GLOBAL BOYCOTT
OF SOAS & ALL OF ITS ACTIVITIES
because that is the only way that
we can hold SOAS accountable, and take
forward the struggle for real institutional change in our university.
That campaign will continue for
the next ten years, OR UNTIL SUCH TIME AS MY LIBRARY ACCESS IS RESTORED.
You are invited to join the boycott as an act of solidarity.
I am gradually preparing a
website with a full and detailed legal refutation of their case against me. No
least that I was NOT ALLOWED TO ATTEND THE HEARING,
and they told me that I HAD NO RIGHT OF APPEAL.
Unbelievable in this day and age!
Monkey tricks!
See:
www.geocities.ws/banned-from-soas
La lutte
continue, as they say...
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