Discover Islam Week and IERA

In the years Student Rights has been logging on-campus events featuring speakers with a history of extreme or intolerant views, February has stood out as one of the busiest months. This appears to be in part due to the popularity of ‘Discover Islam Weeks’ during this month; the sheer number of events providing such speakers […]

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SOAS speakers claim undermined by event history

Last week, following a government press release which ‘named and shamed’ several universities for hosting extreme speakers, one of the institutions identified hit back at these claims. Laura Gibbs, registrar of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), argued in a statement that the college had “not hosted any extremist speakers in the last […]

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Hamza Tzortzis at Oxford Brookes University

Last week Hamza Tzortzis, a senior member of the Islamic Education and Research Academy (IERA), appeared at Oxford Brookes University. Student Rights has been monitoring extreme speakers on UK campuses since 2009 and has logged a significant number of events featuring Tzortzis, who has a history of intolerant statements. On apostasy, he has said: “If […]

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Open letter shows concerns about student campaign against Prevent

Last week saw an open letter published in the Independent which targeted the UK’s counter-radicalisation strategy, Prevent, and called for it to be scrapped. Signed by over 40 senior National Union of Students (NUS) and individual student union officers, the letter damned the policy as one which: “…reinforces an ‘us’ and ‘them’ view of the […]

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Muhammad Salah and the University of Greenwich

On 9 May, the Islamic Society at the University of Greenwich released a poster for an ‘Annual Dinner’ event called ‘The Promise of Allah & The Promise of Shaytaan’. Due to take place on 5 June, the event was to feature Muhammad Salah as a “special guest”, who would have been an extremely controversial speaker. […]

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Hizb ut-Tahrir’s hypocrisy on freedom of speech (Update: Event report on HT website)

UPDATE 04/05/2015: Following last week’s event a report of Dr Wahid’s speech has been published on the HT website. In this, Dr Wahid states that his aim was: “exposing the UK Counter-Extremism policy called ‘Prevent’ for an audience that may not be well-acquainted with its most sinister and pernicious aspects”. He also claims that: “‘Deradicalisation’…is […]

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Islamic Society ‘Annual Dinner’ features extreme speakers (Update: Event details changed)

UPDATE: Following the publication of this article, the title of this event was changed to the first Annual Dinner of the ‘Al-Kawni Trust’. This organisation, alleged to be a front set up by members of City Islamic Society in 2010, has frequently promoted City events in the past. The City University Islamic Society has denied […]

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Hizb ut-Tahrir activist to speak at SOAS

University should be a place for debate, where students can discuss ideas with their right to freedom of expression protected. However, all too often, events are hosted in which there is no such debate; where a panel of speakers with similar views are simply given an unchallenged platform. This can be seen in an event […]

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IERA speaker appears at UCL despite ban

Last week Student Rights highlighted the continued promotion of Dawah training events held by the Islamic Education and Research Academy (IERA), and the effects they could have on students. IERA is currently barred from operating at University College London (UCL) – yet this has not stopped one of these events from being arranged on campus […]

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