UK lecturers refuse to spy on students

PressEsc
May. 31, 2007

UK university lectures today vehemently rejected a government plan to require academic staff to spy on Muslim student, describing it as a "witch-hunt".

University and College Union, the main trade body trade union and professional association for higher educators, resolved to "To resist attempts by government to engage colleges and universities in activities which amount to increased surveillance of Muslim or other minority students and to the use of members of staff for such witch-hunts," at their annual congress held in Bournemouth.

The motion comes in response to British government's new guidelines that make it compulsory for universities to keep a watchful eye on Muslim students, and immediately report any suspicious behaviour to the authorities.

The congress deplored what they saw as "the recent rise in racism and xenophobia and its apparent promotion by government policies." and vowed "to mount active campaigns against all attacks on civil liberties and to argue for the benefits of a plural society."

"Increasingly restrictive measures, and the xenophobic language surrounding them, employed in discussion of immigration and the so-called 'war on terror', combined with islamophobia and the attempts at increased surveillance of muslim communities, are not only encouraging racist and xenophobic tendencies in Britain but are also leading to measures that threaten civil liberties as a whole," the motion stated.