Blog Index

Last week, the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA) was reported to have ruled that Sheffield Hallam University should pay compensation to a student for dismissing his complaints about the behaviour of the university Palestine Society. The anonymous student first filed an official complaint with the Sheffield Hallam University Students’ Union in June ...

Dozens of police officers were called to University College London (UCL) on Thursday evening after anti-Israel protesters targeted an event organised by pro-Israel advocacy groups, according to initial reports. Israeli activist, Hen Mazzig, was addressing an event at UCL hosted by the Friends of Israel student group, when anti-Israel protesters from the Friends of Palestine Society ...

On Friday 21st October, armed police arrested a 19 year old man after a suspect package was left on the Jubilee Line at North Greenwich Station. Described as a “loner”, the man has since been named as Damon Smith, and had enrolled a few weeks earlier at London Metropolitan University. Smith was shot with a Taser as ...

Last week, Elliot Miller, the new National Organiser at Student Rights, led a ‘Challenging Extremism Workshop’ session at the University of Manchester. Hosted by students on 20th October, the workshop consisted of a brief presentation about the different types of extreme speakers and groups which target campuses, as well as the pros and cons of the ...

Students at Royal Holloway held a counter-demonstration today to show their opposition to the presence of a Racial Volunteer Force (RVF) protest on their campus. The extremist group, formed by former Combat 18 members in 2003, had announced its members would be appearing at the university to support cleaners it claims were sacked for attending an ...

Earlier this week, The Mancunion, the University of Manchester’s student paper, reported that racist graffiti had been directed towards one of the candidates standing in the student union elections. On Monday, it was discovered that the posters of a student standing to be the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Officer had been defaced and vandalised with ...

Yesterday saw the release of the Home Affairs Select Committee’s (HASC) report into antisemitism in the UK, which included a significant section on campus antisemitism. While this section began by detailing the controversy around Oxford University Labour Club, as well as Baroness Royall’s report into the matter, the focus was on the National Union of Students ...

Queen Mary student, Jacob Kishere, attended last month’s ‘Students not Suspects’ event at his university which saw NUS vice president, Shelly Asquith, criticised for encouraging students to ensure universities were unable to fulfill their legal duties around Prevent. Here, he gives his take on the positions taken by the speakers. All views are his own, and ...

The long-running controversy over past comments made by National Union of Students (NUS) President, Malia Bouattia, continued today with the release of an open letter signed by three NUS vice presidents and dozens of other student leaders. While Bouattia was not named in the letter, the signatories wrote that:“NUS’ Leadership has rightly come under increased scrutiny ...

A new year has only just begun on university campuses, and the National Union of Students’ (NUS) anti-Prevent agenda has been quick off the block to pick up where it left off last year. This has taken the form of the ‘Students Not Suspects’ campaign, which hosted an event in association with Queen Mary University Students’ ...

It has emerged that students attending an off-campus Exeter University event on Tuesday, were witnessed sporting t-shirts with antisemitic and white supremacist slogans. The event, hosted by the Snow Sports society at the Timepiece nightclub, saw students use magic markers to scribble slogans and drawings on each other’s t-shirts. While the majority of scribbles were of the ...

The new academic year has barely started, yet the new President of the National Union of Students (NUS), Malia Bouattia, has once again sparked controversy. During her time as NUS Black Students’ Officer, Bouattia infamously opposed a motion condemning Islamic State, and earlier this year 50 Presidents of Jewish student societies criticised her for previously labelling ...

The academic term has barely started but that hasn’t stopped extremist’s targeting campuses. Yesterday, it was reported that National Action, a neo-Nazi group with militaristic pretences, has targeted the University of Leicester with antisemitic flyers, which read:“One day the world will know that Adolf Hitler was right!” Another sticker plastered on a sign at the university declared ...

In January, Student Rights reported on the protest which shut down an event featuring Ami Ayalon, the former Director of Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet, at King’s College London (KCL). The protesters disrupted the event from the start by chanting “Free, Free Palestine” and then preceded to bang on the building’s windows and doors, smashing ...

Daniel Yahia, a student at the University of Edinburgh elected as a National Union of Students (NUS) delegate, has been accused of using antisemitic language on his Facebook page When discussing Nir Bitton, an Israeli footballer who plays for Celtic, Mr Yahia wrote: “Sick of seeing Celtic fans creaming themselves over Nir Bitton. We are a club ...

Baroness Jan Royall’s report, which was leaked today, claims individual members of the Oxford University Labour Club (OULC) “did engage in anti-Semitic acts”. However, Baroness Royall also wrote that she does not, “believe that there is institutional antisemitism within OULC”, rather, “difficulties”, which face the OULC. Allegations of antisemitism in the OULC came to light in February ...

Local media reports last week suggest several buildings on the Keele University campus were vandalised in July, including the Keele University Islamic Centre. Muslim students discovered the wreckage when they arrived for morning prayers on 22 July, forcing them to move Friday afternoon prayers outside. With vandals also attacking a neighbouring office, the damage to the Islamic ...

Cubeyda Hassan Jama, a computer science student studying at Middlesex University, was jailed for three and a half years yesterday for engaging in the preparation of terrorist acts. Jama used his student loan to stockpile survival equipment and buy a one-way ticket to Bucharest in February – aiming to cross the Turkish-Syrian border to join Islamic ...

Student Rights has long argued that there is a problem with antisemitism on the UK’s university campuses, and that this is an issue which the National Union of Students (NUS) has failed to take seriously. The perception the organisation has failed to deal with the problem was strengthened earlier this year following the election of Malia ...

A Mail on Sunday investigation has revealed the identity of Umm Muthanna Al-Britaniyah, an Islamic State (IS) recruiter who tried to lure young British Muslim women to travel to Syria to marry fighters. The woman is believed to be Tooba Gondal, a 22 year old from East London who studied English at Goldsmiths College. While in Syria, ...

On Sunday, hundreds of anti-Israel activists gathered in central London to take part in the annual Al-Quds Day march, following a tradition inspired by Ayatollah Khomeini. The march was organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), a group Student Rights has written on a number of times in the past. This has included highlighting that the ...

Yesterday, Student Rights’ director, Rupert Sutton, spoke in Brussels at an event, hosted by the European Policy Centre (EPC), which sought to address the issue of jihadist radicalisation in schools, universities, prisons and mosques. He was joined on the panel by Muhammad Manwar Ali, Chief Executive of JIMAS, Rodrigo Ballester, the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, ...

Following reports of an increased number of racist incidents across the UK in the wake of last week’s referendum result, students at the University of Leicester have reported disgraceful anti-Muslim graffiti. The Atheist, Humanist, and Secular (ASH) Society at the university posted a picture of a banner promoting an Eid festival which had been painted several ...

Students at the University of Oxford took part in a spontaneous protest last week after several preachers set up a stall near their colleges claiming the victims of the Orlando shooting “deserved their fates because of who they were”. The events followed the murder of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on 12 ...

On Wednesday, Student Rights attended an event called ‘The Prevent Guidance: Preventing extremism or promoting prejudice?’ at University College London (UCL) which was co-hosted by the law firm Bindmans. With a balanced panel and independent moderator in the form of David Anderson QC, the event was a rare example of a robust debate on Prevent at ...