Israeli newspaper slams Justice Week as ‘anti-Western’

The Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post attacked Imperial College Islamic Society on Monday, publishing an article entitled “UK university hosts ‘anti-west’ week under ‘justice’ guise”. Justice Week is described by its organizers at ISoc as an opportunity to “educate ourselves about some of the injustices found in the world and show what we as individuals can do about them”. Scheduled events include talks on exploitation of the 3rd world, Guantanamo bay imprisonment and a screening of the latest Michael Moore film; but will also stage controversial speakers.

The article in The Jerusalem Post (JP) includes claims made about Justice Week from Douglas Murray, the neo-conservative commentator who featured as a panelist on Question Time earlier this month. Murray is also director of the right wing think-tank, Center for Social Cohesion, which has come under fire in the past from the National Assembly Against Racism and NUS Black Students Campaign. He said, “If you were a student at Imperial College looking to learn about injustices in the world you might have expected to learn about the injustices in Darfur, or against Kurds and Christians across the Middle East but no, as usual with such events, it has to do only with the delegitimization of Israel, America and her allies” and alleged that Justice Week “is only to do with injustice and hate”.

Also quoted in the JP article were members of Student Rights. This organization claims on its website to be a “non-partisan group dedicated to equality, democracy, and freedom from extremism on university campuses”. However, an investigation by London Student earlier this year accused Student Rights of being a right-wing pressure group with a questionable student support base, allegations which they deny. JP quoted Matthew Walker of Student Rights as saying, “Justice Week appears to be dedicated to jihadist propaganda on taxpayer-funded university campuses”.

Campaigning from both these groups led to a similar event, which featured Jamal Harwood – a speaker at Justice Week – being cancelled at Queen Mary Student Union in December last year. QMSU were unable to comment on this.

ISoc president, Umer Hakeem, told Felix that his society was not contacted by The Jerusalem Post to give a response to the accusations made in the article. He explained, “Justice Week intends to highlight various injustices that resonate with our members and around the world and offers Islam as a potential solution to these”. ISoc is one of the biggest societies on campus and is heavily involved in ICU activities. It raised more money than any other society for Charity Week this year, totaling £29,414.50. Posters around campus advertising Justice Week bear the slogan: “Be the change you want to see in the world”, quoted from Mahatama Gandhi.

In response to the objections to Justice Week voiced in the article, Hakeem answered, “We encourage all to attend our events and respectfully challenge our speakers if they disagree with their views rather than attempting to eliminate one side of the debate by censoring speakers”. He added, “We don’t consider attempts to censor legitimate debate as conducive to achieving the aims of Justice Week”.

Felix contacted Jonny Paul, the author of the JP article, who admitted that he did not make any attempt to approach Imperial College or ISoc for a response to the article. He said he saw “no reason to contact them… the article speaks for itself”, but refused to comment further

Raheem Kassam, the Director of Student Rights, was asked to explain the comments made by his organization in the JP. He said that he saw Justice Week as “anti-west, due to the nature of some of the events”. When confronted about the investigation by London Student, Kassam described it as “irresponsible reporting”. He pointed to a “personal grudge” between himself and the author, Hilary Aked, but refused to disclose specific details.

London Student offered Kassam a right of reply to the investigation but he notes that he “didn’t see the point” of pursuing this. Hilary Aked responded, "I've never even met Mr Kassam, and for my part there is no personal grudge. He seems to hold one against me, however, since London Student published an article about Student Rights which showed that they have little to no student involvement [...] You'll notice he just tries to discredit me rather than refuting the facts in the article; that's because they are accurate."

All external speakers invited by societies to talk on Imperial College campus are subject to a vetting process, which the guest speakers for Justice Week passed. Coordinating this process was Heather Jones, Sabbatical Officer for Clubs and Societies, who commented, “the article obviously raised some of our concerns but we have a duty to uphold Freedom of Speech on campus according to The Education Act, 1986”. The Jewish and Israeli Societies were consulted as part of this vetting process.

In response to the article published in the JP, the College called a crisis meeting on Monday to review the events and speakers scheduled for Justice Week. Reportedly, this meeting included college security, a representative from ISoc, and senior college officials.

Security concerns led to cancellation of the first of the Justice Week events, due to have taken place on Monday. However, these were related to room booking capacity and were largely administrative according to Jones who described the affair as “unfortunate but actually quite tedious”.

Rory Fenton is Officer for Interfaith, which promotes good relations between the religious societies at Imperial, and said that the scheduled event and speakers for Justice Week were “not damaging to interfaith relations”.

A screening on Wednesday of the Michael Moore film “Capitalism: A Love Story” was followed by commentary from Jamal Harwood – an expert in Islamic finance. He said, “the article is a bit of a rant against the Imperial Islamic Society” and “all these people are doing is whipping up anti-Islamic sentiment”. He assures students that “the week isn’t at all anti-western” and has “nothing to do with jihad”.

Harwood is a spokesperson for Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic political organization that is currently subject to a “no platform policy” by NUS. This does not include Imperial College, which is not currently a member of NUS. Chair of ICU Political Philosophical Society, Naida Dzigal, spoke on the subject of hosting NUS “no platform policy” speakers on Imperial College Campuses. “I am of the opinion that this should not be done generally, but only because the students who organize such events are usually of the same opinions as the controversial speaker or are on their way to becoming such [...] However, I also think that there should be an exception to this policy if the event is planned carefully and is conducted with regards to the complete student body’s opinions and views”. She added, “some speakers might have valuable opinions on other subjects that are not fascist or racist in any way”.

Speaking on Thursday on behalf of Cageprisoners, a human rights organization that raises awareness of the plight of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, was Asim Qureshi.

He made news in 2006 after a rally outside the US Embassy in London when he declared, “It is incumbent upon all of us to support the jihad of our brothers and sisters in these countries when they are facing the oppression of the west”.

London-based counter-extremism think tank, The Quilliam Foundation, contacted Felix out of concern for Qureshi’s platform on Imperial College campus. Their research stretches from radicalisation on university campuses to the BNP’s demonisation of British Muslims. They provided Felix with transcripts of speeches made by Qureshi at Queen Mary Student Union (QMSU). In December 2006 at QMSU, while discussing suicide bombings in Palestine, he said, “when you’re talking about things like martyrdom operations, then its not for us to judge anything because we don’t live out in those places”. Again at QMSU in January 2007, while discussing the actions of a group of female Chechen suicide bombers called the ‘Black Widows’, he said “we are not here to judge them. We do not live in their paradigm, we do not live their daily lives”.

Speaking about Qureshi – Lucy James, a research fellow at Quilliam, says “he has clearly condoned acts of violence abroad in the past” and his presence on campus is “beyond a Freedom of Speech issue”. Felix attempted to contact Qureshi but he was not available for a response. The Quilliam Foundation also voiced concerns as to whether the vetting process for external speakers at university campuses is currently tight enough.

Justice Week ends with talks by Professor Norman Finkelstein on the 2009 Gaza Invasion, in connection to his new book “This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion”. Next week’s issue of Felix will include an interview with Professor Finkelstein by our political editor. Tickets for the event with Finkelstein sold out within 24 hours. However, a second talk later on the same night was scheduled to capacitate the extra demand and tickets have been made available to non-Imperial students. Finkelstein’s UK tour has been accompanied by a Facebook group “No to hate! No to Norman Finkelstein!” This group plans to protest at all of the dates on his UK tour, including Imperial College, but is limited to a small number of individuals - at time of printing only 9 people have declared attendance. The talks take place tonight (Friday) from 6pm and will be held in the Clore Lecture Theatre in the Huxley Building. Tickets are £5 and can be bought from the ICU website; protesting at the event will be free.

A spokesperson from the college wrote to Felix about Justice Week. “Imperial College London campuses are places of intellectual debate, tolerance and openness among its diverse staff and student community”. And “the College has concluded that the events taking place during Justice Week meet the requirements under its Code of Practice on Freedom of Speech”.

UPDATE: Response added from Hilary Aked – 07:49 29/11/10