OXFORD UNIVERSITY SHOWS ITS LACK OF INTEGRITY (AGAIN)

Oxford University has once again shown that it has no academic integrity after inviting Taib Mahmud, the controversial Chief Minister of the Malaysian state of Sarawk, to present an opening address at the Oxford Global Islamic Branding and Marketing Forum, held at the Said Business School.

According to an NGO statement, Taib is "one of Asia's greatest Kleptograts" who has systematically plundered the rich Borneo jungles for timber. The statement goes on to say that "Most of the state of Sarawak has been illegally absorbed into the possession of his cronies and family members through 'privatisations' and the handing out of palm oil and timber concessions, via arbitrary state acquisitions of native lands" and that this has resulted in "environmental destruction, serious human rights violations and poverty".

Taib Mahmud holds the three key offices of Chief Minister, Finance Minister and State Planning and Resource Management Minister of Sarawak and is directly responsible for the destruction of the state's once rich primeval rainforests. Taib also denies the Penan, Sarawak's poorest inhabitants and rainforest inhabitants, all rights over their traditional lands in the jungle. Meanwhile, logging companies are destroying much of the forest that this tribe and wildlife, including increasingly endangered orangutans, rely on.

The forum, which ran from 26th-27th July, was attended by 250 business leaders and was subjected to a demonstration from supporters of the charity and human rights organization Survival International.

It is of no surprise to those who are aware of Oxford University's lack of ethics that it has no problem with associating itself with a person such as Taib Mahmud. After all, the Said business school itself was built from a donation from a known arms trader. The university has also previously been condemned for being involved with a highly criticized project that is building a new city in India, displacing the indigenous people who have inhabited the area for centuries, and it has recently angered its own students and academics by accepting more than £3 million from a foundation established by a founder of the controversial oil trading company Trafigura, which only this month was fined £840,000 by a court in the Netherlands for illegally exporting tonnes of toxic waste to west Africa. 30,000 people were made ill when the Probo Koala, a ship leased by Trafigura, dumped waste in Ivory Coast.

So the question that SPEAK supporters ask is, if Oxford University shows so little concern for the rights of people, what hope do its voiceless animal victims imprisoned inside its laboratories have? Unfortunately, I think we all know the answer to that is no hope at all, unless we speak out for them. That is why SPEAK will continue fighting against the atrocities carried out on living creatures by this shameful institution.