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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Student 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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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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University of Westminster diversity report released

In June, Student Rights spoke to the Sunday Times about a leaked report commissioned by the University of Westminster which had found serious concerns about the university Islamic Society. With the report being released this month, the story has now been covered in the Guardian, focusing on the society’s “ultra-conservative” views, as well as the […]

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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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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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