More evidence has emerged that Islamic Societies at universities are continuing to host extremist preachers in front of segregated audiences. Last month, students at the University of Westminster invited Murtaza Khan, before replacing him with the equally reprehensible Uthman Lateef. At around the same time, Brunel University Islamic Society hosted Lateef and Dr Khalid Fikry as guest speakers.
Other university Islamic societies including Nottingham, Salford, Kingston, SOAS and Queen Mary have also hosted hardline preachers, despite concern that their sermons stir up sectarian hatred and sow social division.
The most recent instance was the University of East London (UEL), where the Islamic Society secured permission to hold its Annual Dinner on 17 April in the main lecture theatre of the Docklands campus. Two notorious Islamist advocates, Murtaza Khan and Uthman Lateef, were due to speak, and the event was advertised as ‘segregated’. Men and women who wanted to attend had to book tickets via two separate phone lines – one for ‘brothers’, and the other for ‘sisters’.
Counter-extremism group Student Rights pointed out that this could contravene the university’s own equality policies – and it could be against equality law for a public body, funded by the state, to facilitate gender segregation.
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