Representatives of Vivisection Exposed staged a protest outside the entrance to Royal Holloway University this morning to coincide with the university’s open day: an occasion which is intended to attract new students.
According to Royal Holloway’s response to a request for information made under the Freedom of Information Act in 2021, hamsters and mice are killed for medicinal research but the university was unable to provide any information on the numbers of people – if any – that had benefited by such research. Also, Royal Holloway declined to confirm or deny if there had been any protests or acts of vandalism relating to animal testing at the university and also declined to confirm whether or not it was working towards reducing the number of animals that it was using for experiments.
At one point in this morning’s protest, a member of the university’s security staff was seen remonstrating with the protesters even though they were demonstrating peacefully and remained outside of the university’s campus. Previously, and as recently as June this year, when community representatives had asked the university if college security could be used to patrol the surrounding streets when late-night student social events were being held, the response was that security staff were not insured to do this and can’t work outside campus. Double standards? In any case, it seems as if the local community isn’t the only thing that could meet its demise because of the university.