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 readingTag Archives: intolerant
Student 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 readingThe Prevent Duty on Campus – Rupert Sutton speech
The issue of extremism on university campuses has been part of the public debate since the 7/7 attacks, and comes under new scrutiny every time an individual involved in violent extremism is found to have studied at a UK university. In 2011, the revised Prevent strategy declared there was “…unambiguous evidence” extremist organisations targeted specific […]
Continue readingStudent Voice: The student left’s broken moral compass
Following last week’s events at Goldsmiths College, Queen Mary student Tom Owolade has written on the failure of the Goldsmiths Feminist and LGBTQ Societies to stand with Maryam Namazie, and their expressions of solidarity with students responsible for the disruption. This article is cross-posted below, and all views are his own, and do not necessarily […]
Continue readingExtreme speakers at genocide event
An event tonight hosted by the Islamic Society at Kingston University is due to feature Dr Uthman Lateef and Wasim Kempson; speakers that Student Rights has called attention to in the past. Entitled ‘Answer the Call’, and focusing on genocide in the Central African Republic, the event invites show extreme speakers continue to appear on […]
Continue readingReport: Maryam Namazie Speaks at Warwick University
On Wednesday evening, Student Rights travelled to Warwick University to hear human rights campaigner Maryam Namazie address students. The event, entitled ‘Apostasy, Blasphemy and Free Expression in the age of ISIS’, discussed how the rise of extreme Islamist movements has suppressed human rights in the Middle East, and also focused on attempts to silence criticism […]
Continue readingStudent Voice: Challenging Hamza Tzortzis at Oxford Brookes
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, Harvir Dhillon, the president of Oxford Brookes University Quilliam Society, details his attempts to do so when Hamza Tzortzis appeared on campus. All […]
Continue readingStudent Rights welcomes Counter-Extremism Strategy
Earlier this week, the Home Secretary outlined a number of new measures to counter extremism which aim to “systematically confront and challenge extremist ideology”. Student Rights broadly welcomes the new Counter-Extremism Strategy, which identifies extremist activity on UK campuses as a serious problem which must be tackled without damaging freedom of expression. The strategy reaffirms […]
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