‘Israeli Apartheid Week’ events face cancellations

The recent cancellation of a number of on-campus events slated to take place as part of ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’ (IAW) appears to presage a significant change in the way institutions are dealing with the issue. A week-long program raising awareness of what its supporters see as ‘settler-colonialism’ in occupied Palestine, IAW activism has seen the […]

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Friends of al-Aqsa and campus activism

Since the start of the 2016-17 academic year, Student Rights has seen a concerted attempt by Friends of al-Aqsa to target students across the UK. In November, the group used Twitter to target student societies at 39 universities, promoting its ‘Hands off al-Aqsa’ campaign, and has since been advertising volunteer days to student activists. These […]

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Student Voice: Prevent and the NUS’ credibility gap on tackling extremism

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, […]

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The Sunday Times: Corbyn aide: Ignore anti-terror laws (£)

A senior member of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign team has called on people to break anti-terrorism laws. In a recording obtained by The Sunday Times, Shelly Asquith dismissed the threat of “so-called Islamic extremism” and laid out a programme of “grassroots activism” to make Prevent, the government’s anti-terror strategy, “truly unworkable”. She stated: “Are we […]

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Students Not Suspects Conference: Myths and Scaremongering

As well as hosting extreme groups at its conference last week, the NUS-led ‘Students Not Suspects‘ campaign also continued to spread inflammatory misinformation about Prevent. These myths include the notion that Prevent is racist and Islamophobic, that is being used to spy on service users, and that it is aimed at shutting down anti-government activism. […]

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Students Not Suspects Conference: Campaigning with Extremists

Founded last summer, the ‘Students Not Suspects‘ campaign has now spent an academic year working to undermine Prevent, the government’s counter-radicalisation strategy, on university campuses. While students should of course be free to oppose and challenge policy, Student Rights has repeatedly criticised the campaign, which is led by high profile National Union of Students (NUS) […]

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Students plan NUS disaffiliation over presidential vote (Update: Students at more universities raise

Update 22/04/2016: Individual members from student societies across the political spectrum at the University of York (UoY), including the “Labour Club, the York Tories, the UoY Lib Dems, York UKIP, York Greens, PalSoc, York Liberty and York Union”, have announced that they will be working together to write a motion demanding York University Student Union […]

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NUS officer speaks at MEMO event

Here at Student Rights, we have frequently criticised National Union of Students (NUS) officials when they have campaigned alongside groups like CAGE and MEND. This trend continued last Saturday, when NUS Black Students’ Officer Malia Bouattia spoke at an event organised by Middle East Monitor (MEMO) titled ‘Targeting Dissent: Israel’s Crackdown on Arab Citizens’. MEMO […]

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National Action on campus in Nottingham

Throughout 2014, Student Rights highlighted attempts by the neo-Nazi organisation, National Action, to target university campuses. While often only taking the form of poster drops, this activism was a worrying phenomenon, one exacerbated by the fact a member of the group was later convicted of attempted murder. While National Action appears to have had little […]

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