Student Rights Called Out At Last

This blog has previously noted the behaviour of the self-appointed Student Rights, an offshoot of the neocon Henry Jackson Society, which has of late been sticking its bugle into several higher education establishments, although no invitation has been extended to them by the authorities there (you can read about them HERE and HERE). Now the National Union Of Students (NUS) has had enough.

Unwanted as well as pretentious? Who, moi?

Student Rights’ stock in trade has been to target followers of The Prophet, picking up on any group which they can label as “extremist”, and any speaker that may have voiced controversial views in the past, and then throw their stampiest tantrum in the hope that proper media organisations will take notice. If action is taken against any of their targets, they then claim to have somehow influenced events.

The cover for this thinly-disguised Muslim bashing interference is the presence of Raheem “call me Ray” Kassam, who describes himself as “from a Muslim family”, but who has not so much as considered following the smallest scrap of the Qur’an for some time, as witness his willingness to repair to the Rub-A-Dub and render himself incapable in short order, on a regular basis.

Well, earlier this week the NUS acted against Student Rights: “Yesterday, the NUS Executive Council unanimously voted to condemn Student Rights' presence on university campuses. This followed seven student unions – LSE, Birkbeck, Goldsmiths, UCL, Kingston, Queen Mary and King’s College – who condemned the organisation”. And, as the man said, there’s more.

“The NUS was unequivocal in its condemnation of the group, with NUS Black Students’ Officer Aaron Kiely calling them an ‘insidious organisation’ with a ‘total lack of transparency ... They are totally discredited and the NUS condemning them will hopefully put an end to this toxic organisation’”. The NUS action was picked up by the Independent. Student Rights is not happy.

The usual rebuttal is made: the NUS is smeared as somehow undemocratic – this from a body which no student body or University administration asked to become involved – and the Real Student Rights campaign is defamed as being connected to extremists, a tactic that could have come straight out of the Andrew Gilligan playbook. Gilligan is notorious for his Muslim bashing.

For Hilary Aked of Real Student Rights, the message is clear: “This decisively proves that 'Student Rights' has no right to give itself that name as it neither defends nor represents students. Now that the national student body has condemned the group we hope its days of stigmatising and silencing Muslim students are over”. Perhaps Kassam and his gofer could run along and find some gainful employment.

They weren’t welcome on campus before, and now everyone knows. Good riddance.