Soton students protest Uni’s relationship with BAE systems

Students gathered to protest BAE systems at todays career fair on campus.

BAE systems are a weapons and security company, selling arms all over the world. They're the biggest UK producer of arms and are the third largest globally.

I spoke with Sophie Howard, one of the students protesting outside Jubilee Sports Centre, asking why they were protesting.

"Currently the university is embroiled in a multi-million pound deal with BAE systems …we don't want this collaboration to happen because BAE are a morally bankrupt institution…their weapons are currently being sold to regimes such as Iran and Saudi Arabia who are committing atrocities in Yemen. Thousands of Yemen civilians have been killed by arms sold by BAE…They have a long long history of corruption and just selling to whatever regime, however corrupt, if the price is right…We don't want our engineering and computer science graduates talents to go into developing weapons when it can be used for a multitude of other more positive things"

If you support the protest there's a link to a petition linked here asking the universities to cut ties with the arms dealer.