Yesterday, Student Rights attended a protest outside the National Union of Students (NUS) office in London which rallied various free speech groups in opposition to the increasing censorship seen on university campuses. This has included human rights activist Maryam Namazie being banned from Warwick, as well as attempts to stop her speaking at Goldsmiths by […]
Continue readingTag Archives: extremist speakers on campus
Moazzam Begg challenged at the University of Exeter
Here at Student Rights, we have often highlighted the need to ensure extremists face challenge on-campus, and encourage students to debate speakers with extreme and intolerant views. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen enough. Unbalanced platforms and hostile environments which suppress views different to the panellists often result in students’ voices being marginalised. On Tuesday, students at […]
Continue readingWestminster student named in Islamic State documents
Last week saw the publication of thousands of Islamic State (IS) documents reveal the name of another student from the University of Westminster who had travelled to Syria to fight alongside the terrorist group. The Telegraph has reported that the files include the details of 18 year old Mohammed Jackir Ali, who dropped out of […]
Continue readingStudent Voice: Hamza Tzortzis at UKC
President of the University of Kent ASH Society, Peter Keeling, gives his take on seeing Hamza Tzortzis appear on campus following Gino Ragnoli’s blog on Tzortzis’ Leicester appearance. All views are his own, and do not necessarily represent those of Student Rights… Hamza’s Tzortzis’ talk, entitled ‘YOLO’, was given to a well-attended lecture theatre, although […]
Continue readingNew Student Rights briefing details campus antisemitism
While isolated claims of antisemitism have long been made on UK campuses, the issue was recently brought to the forefront of the public debate by allegations made against members of the Oxford University Labour Club (OULC). While the scale of these allegations was shocking, Student Rights has long argued that antisemitism is a serious problem […]
Continue readingStudent Voice: Hamza Tzortzis at the University of Leicester
The argument often used when extreme or intolerant speakers appear on campus is that it exposes their views to challenge from students, but in our experience this doesn’t happen often enough. Here, Gino Ragnoli, Treasurer of the University of Leicester Atheist, Humanist and Secular Society, details his attempts to do so when Hamza Tzortzis appeared […]
Continue readingDiscover 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 […]
Continue readingPreventing Prevent at Goldsmiths
On Monday, Goldsmiths College hosted the latest event in the National Union of Student’s (NUS) ‘Students Not Suspects’ tour, which aims to undermine the government’s counter-radicalisation strategy, Prevent. Once again, NUS Black Student’s Officer Malia Bouattia used the event to defend CAGE and shared a platform with the group’s Director of Outreach Moazzam Begg, despite […]
Continue readingA step in the right direction at Kingston University
Earlier this week, Kingston University’s Department of Journalism hosted a panel discussion on the government’s Prevent Strategy. Last term, we saw a series of events where speakers from extreme groups went unchallenged as they condemned Prevent, spreading misleading and divisive information in the process. Monday’s event saw a rare and welcome attempt to provide an […]
Continue readingStudent Rights at Exeter Debating Society
Last Friday, Student Rights National Organiser Gray Sergeant spoke at the University of Exeter Debating Society on the motion ‘This House Supports No Platform Policies at University’. Here he outlines his opinion on the topic. On being invited to attend this debate, I spoke for the motion despite my increasing frustration with overzealous student unions […]
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