Usama Ghanem, a pro-Palestine second-year international student at King’s College London (KCL) has had his student visa sponsorship revoked by the university management. This means he would be forcibly deported back to Egypt.
Ghanem has been punished because he took part in three pro-Palestine protests on campus. But it was outside influence from a Zionist pressure group that made the difference.
The ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism’, urged Shitji Kapur, the vice chancellor of KCL to “open a full and transparent investigation into the event, with a view to immediate disciplinary action against the students involved”.
The event they refer to was a protest at an academic talk ‘From Conflict to Connections: Israelis & Iranians’ which included Faezeh Alavi, a supporter of the Zionist state and Benjamin Netanyahu.
KCL hypocrisy
In this act, KCL has deliberately made this decision despite actively knowing that Ghanem, alongside his father and brother, have faced torture from opposing Egypt’s authoritarian regime. If they were to go back to Egypt, it would be a serious risk to their lives.
It is also a lie that KCL is protecting Jewish students from ‘antisemitism’. This is, and has always been about suppressing pro-Palestine voices who are calling out the genocide in Gaza, which the British establishment are complicit in.
For example, a pro-Palestine student at KCL who is Jewish had her video interview with Roar News, the KCL newspaper, taken down due to concerns about antisemitism. Roar News claimed it did not meet their ‘standards for balance and impartiality’.
Moreover, this act of suppression of the Palestine movement is not a lone case. In February 2024, it was found that there was a mass disciplinary action across 28 universities. In all, 113 students and staff were investigated for their conduct and involvement with the Palestinian cause.
Liberty Investigates, who carried out the investigation, summed up correctly:
“It is as if, overnight, many universities had become an absolutely hostile space for dissent and free expression…”
‘Free speech’ and the right of ‘free assembly and protest’, as well as student safety, only exist for those who hold opinions that are considered ‘valid’ by the Western imperialists.
Students fight back
Despite this repression, millions of people have seen through this hypocrisy. And yesterday, KCL Communists joined the protest in solidarity with Ghanem on campus.
Many students who were not aware of Ghanem’s case simply stopped by after seeing the Palestine flag and were outraged – but not surprised – that KCL would act to deport one of its own students for protesting against an ongoing genocide.
Usama Ghanem said previously in a short Instagram video: “On all of the things King’s has done against me, that should not deter us on the fight for justice for the Palestinian people.”
View this post on Instagram
This is correct. The repression and smears are used to suffocate voices calling out the crimes of Western imperialism, and their complicity in the genocide on Gaza. We must not let that happen.
We call on the elected student representatives of the KCL student union (KCLSU), who themselves have been harassed to keep quiet on Palestine, to launch a campus wide campaign to reinstate Usama Ghanem.
This should include organising protests, mobilising the student body, and rejecting any smears to claim pro-Palestine protests are ‘antisemtic’.
An injury to one student is an injury to all!
Leeds Uni Management arrest pro-Palestine protesters
Netta Hociej, Leeds
On 21 October, students from the University of Leeds (UoL) were scandalously arrested for a pro-Palestine protest calling for “arms off campus”. One student was even forced to the ground by West Yorkshire Police.
These weapons companies are complicit in the genocide in Gaza and they are preying upon STEM students, enticing them into designing weapons for British imperialism. Students are well within their right to protest against them.
While being shoved into a back of a police car, the student bravely shouted, “They are arresting me for protesting this university’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza.”
View this post on Instagram
Threats towards pro-Palestine students and societies on the UoL campus have been ramping up for some time. Societies had already been warned they will be de-registered if they support ‘unsanctioned’ Palestine protests on campus, for example.
But it doesn’t stop there. In addition to its enrolled student body, Leeds also has 40 offer-holders for courses who are currently trapped in Gaza. Reportedly, the university has had no communication with them about their enrolment or made any exceptions to what is an exceptional situation – essentially completely abandoning them to their fate.
UoL sang a very different tune when the war in Ukraine broke out, releasing statement upon statement denouncing Russia and offering sanctuary scholarships and emergency finance funds for students impacted.
To add insult to injury, the university is currently holding an exhibition on the history of activism(!) – all while, five minutes up the road, they call the police on their own students to brutally arrest them while they protest a genocide.
University of Leeds vice chancellor Shearer West sits on a baseline yearly salary of £330,000 whilst her students struggle for meals in mouldy housing, and then are intimidated and brutalised for protesting arms companies on campus.
This is a kind of rottenness and hypocrisy that could only be conjured up by the evils of capitalism. We should kick out the complicit university management and kick arms companies that profit off of the killing of innocent children in Gaza off campus!
Being subject to surveillance and criminalisation for protest, facing down exorbitant living costs, isolation, and a mental health crisis – this is the reality of student life on campus.
