Students branded ‘fools’ by director of “Student Rights”

Raheem Kassam, the director of dodgy front-group “Student Rights”, today branded students – whose rights his organisation claims to protect – “fools” because they believe the activities of his group are Islamophobic.

(click on image to enlarge – link to original Tweet here)

Kassam – clearly rattled by the success of the ‘Real Student Rights’ student campaign to expose his organisation as a front for the Henry Jackson Society  – today took to Twitter following a Channel 4 report last week which showed that his group operates out of the right-wing think tank’s office.

In the report, Mason interviewed some students from the London School of Economics, where 347 students had voted to condemn Student Rights for fuelling Islamophobia. LSE SU President, Jay Stoll, who told Mason, when asked if he thought the group were Islamophobic ‘we’ve got to call a spade a spade…yes, absolutely’ is presumably among the students Kassam believes are ‘fools’.

The fact is there is an alarming amount of evidence showing that Student Rights agenda is to target Muslim students and that as a result of their approach students’ welfare has actually been endangered – far-right groups went on to one campus on the basis of their reports, for instance.

In addition, Kassam publishes and promotes plenty of anti-Muslim articles via Trending Central, a right wing site he edits, and formerly did so on another outlet called The Commentator.

The fact that he regards being accused of Islamophobia as a ‘win’ raises serious questions about his attitude towards this serious issue. It is also worrying that, rather than taking students’ concerns seriously, Kassam dismisses them with insults.

He has shown similar disdain for students, however, in a blog for Trending Central in which he justified police attempts to spy on student activists, as reported in the Guardian. He also offers this belittling assessment of the Guardian’s informant: ‘What a clever little boy this Cambridge student is!’ (In this case, the object of Kassam’s dislike, was not, in fact a student.)

Overall, the legitimacy with which he and his group can claim to  be representing or protecting students’ rights is in serious doubt.