Statement: Our view on coverage of Prevent and Students' Unions

A Blog by Kate, our VP Welfare.

A lot has been happening lately in the student movement in relation to the effects of the PREVENT duty – part of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill that the UK Government introduced last year. Its aim is to monitor “extremism” and prevent people being “drawn into terrorism”, by putting legal obligations onto public bodies, including Universities. However, the term “extremism” is vaguely defined as "active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs", the implementation of which is open to wide interpretation. Because of this, NUS are fighting to repeal the bill due to the affect that it has on Muslim students and we support them in doing so.

Students’ Unions and the NUS are fundamentally against terrorism and extremism, there is no doubt about that, however this piece of legislation is having a negative impact on the welfare of our Muslim students, here and across the UK in our Higher Education institutions. The wording of the Bill, coupled with recent negative coverage of the resistance to its contents in news media across the UK, is causing Muslim students to feel victimised and targeted as a result. Last year, your Student Senate passed a policy to condemn the Bill after our own Muslim students were suffering as a consequence and wanted the support of the Students’ Union.

I cannot and do not want to speak for the Muslim community at Cardiff University, but from my own and Claire’s (SU President) experiences, we can see how this makes them feel, how the nature of this bill makes them uncomfortable and unwelcome in their own Universities, a feeling which isn’t replicated for any other specific group of students as a result of the legislation.

So really, I felt it was beyond time that we say officially and publically to all our Muslim students that we support you. You are amazing and you should not have to feel victimised in this way. That you feel targeted because of your religious belief is detestable and something that we should all be campaigning against. Rhetoric in recent press on students’ activism against this bill has attempted to describe you all with the same accusatory definition, and yet you are a students just like all other students, with all the rights that every other student has and as naturally varied and different in so many ways. We are a community, and you are such an important part of that, so we will stand by you and help you to make sure you feel at home during your time at University.

From my view, as a student movement and as an individual Students’ Union, one of the most important things for us is to create the best society for our students within which to live and grow in. Right now, the way some of the press and politicians speak and imply about our Muslim students who are such loved and valued part of our community, pits groups of people against others and creates a society which is antagonistic and based on unfounded stereotypes’ where all of our students will be negatively affected.

So to move on from this, we’ll be working with students over the next few weeks to arrange a panel talk challenging PREVENT and highlighting how the bill negatively affects our Muslim students, whilst continuing to support NUS in their lobbying campaign against the bill.

I hope you’ll all try and take an active stance in support and solidarity to our Muslim students and if you have any questions, comments or simply want to know more, feel free to email me at VPWelfare@cardiff.ac.uk.