Statement on the Genocide in Gaza
The Lived Experience Advisory Board is a group of people with living experience of mental distress and illness as well as professionals with a diverse range of skills, achievements, and expertise, which advises the Centre for Society and Mental Health within King’s College, London.
Many of us are involved in solidarity, actions, mutual aid, protest, and advocacy to oppose the genocide[1] being perpetrated upon Palestinian people in Gaza and the abuses in the West Bank by the State of Israel[2] with the support of the UK Government and other governments, notably the USA and Germany.
In our work it is essential that we have the freedom to express the reality of our lives and the lives of others to better shape research and policy. However, over the last two years censorship by universities and other institutions has become stifling, with authorities abusing safeguarding policies to protect political support for genocide[3] while silencing opposition to it. This is absolutely unacceptable as well as deeply immoral. We know of several instances in other lived experience forums where people have been silenced or expelled[4] for opposing genocide. Some of our own members have experienced this in work at other institutions.
We wish to use our platform to make it clear that this must end. That our colleagues across the sector must be free to express opposition to war crimes, genocide, and to oppose institutional support for those atrocities, especially if that support is within the institutions they work for.
We further suffer moral injury when the institutions we are associated with have business or academic relationships with the British government and the Israeli government who are involved in these war crimes[5]. Thus, we join with others calling on boycott, divestment, and sanctions of any activity that contributes towards the mass murder of Palestinians. We will not be accomplices to genocide and nor should the institutions we are attached to. It is shameful that two years into this there are still significant connections and collaboration within our sector.
We call on universities to:
- Stop silencing people who call out the complicity of academic institutions and the state in genocide. Universities should be places encouraging free debate within ethical parameters, and as genocide is an international crime, support for genocide clearly falls outside these parameters
- Actively challenge anti rights and pro genocide activities and narratives
- Support lived experience personnel to practically speak their truth to power about genocide through networking and events
We wish to express our gratitude for how our work at the LEAB has been supported and we wish to express solidarity with others within the Centre and wider university who continue to work towards ending the genocide, finding a just peace, and accountability[6] for war criminals.
Signed by
Members of the Lived Experience Advisory Board, Centre for Society and Mental Health, King’s College London, UK.
Rick Burgess
James Edwin
Raza Griffiths
Rachel Hill
Cassandra Lovelock
Bwalya Mulenga
Janahan Sivanathan
Sonia Thompson
For questions related to this statement or other blog contributions please contact Prof Hanna Kienzler at hanna.kienzler@kcl.ac.uk
[1] https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203447
[2] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/gaza-un-experts-urge-general-assembly-respond-famine-and-genocide
[3] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-strip-un-commission-finds
[4] https://si4j.org/universityrepression
[5] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/05/gaza-palestinians-disabilities-fear-being-killed-first-says-un-committee
[6] https://genfemucl.wordpress.com/2024/11/25/kcl-complicity-report-divestment-brief/