Written by Skye Slatcher
On 25 November 2025, Amnesty UK launched their newest campaign: Defend Dissent.
The Amnesty team took to the Sheikh Zayed Theatre in CKK to publicly launch the student-led movement, to fight for rights of free speech on university campuses.
They highlighted some of the core findings of their report, which will be released in early 2026. Across UK universities, they have identified clear trends of increasing restrictions on protest and assembly, excessive policing and surveillance of students, and disproportionate disciplinary action. They found that some universities offered to monitor their students’ social media for arms companies. Students and academics speaking out for Palestinian rights have been especially targeted.
They made clear their goal for the campaign: “A UK higher education sector where all students can freely express their views, challenge ideas, and engage in open debate without fear of censorship, reprisal, or institutional barriers. These rights are supported by clear, enforceable policies that make freedom of expression a reality on every campus.” They aim to combat the chilling effect of university censorship and to “challenge powerful institutions”.
Their Charter encompasses ten core pillars, which they hope to see embraced by universities nationally. The Charter has already been accepted by SOAS Student Union. Their goal at SOAS is to have 300 supporters publicly backing the programme by January. William O’Donnell, SOAS Student and one of the campaign’s national leads, said: “Student repression has gone on long enough across our campuses. These are our spaces, our hubs, from which we have a right to speak and express. Universities must protect student voice… It was great to see so many passionate activists at the launch event. We have the momentum, now our institutions must listen!”
The campaign itself aims to build and strengthen a coalition, within and across campuses, between students, staff, and communities. Karishma Patel, a former BBC journalist who left the organisation over Gaza, highlighted the importance of standing up to institutions who do not embrace debate and dissent. Usama Ghanem, a King’s College student currently facing deportation due to his expulsion from the university, spoke about this. He discussed his own experiences of speech being policed on campus, and drew comparisons to him and his father’s experiences in Egypt in the 2010s. Annabelle Flood, one of the LSE 7, also spoke about the censorship and disciplinary action she faced from the LSE administration. These first-hand insights into these very real issues proved rousing material for the audience, who engaged wholeheartedly in the later activities and barnstorming (a style of community organising popular in the US).
An LSE spokesperson:
“Freedom of speech and the right to protest are of the utmost importance to LSE. Our free speech policy is designed to protect and promote peaceful freedom of expression on campus. There have been many instances of peaceful protest over the past year that have proceeded without intervention from LSE.
“We will take measures against protestors only if a protest crosses the line into illegality, is threatening or harassing to individuals, or significantly disrupts our community or important School business. We opened an investigation after the 7 July protest because the methods alleged to have been used by the protestors met these conditions. The protest significantly disrupted the Summer School registration and resulted in complaints from multiple members of staff that they felt intimidated, harassed, and threatened.
“We could not responsibly ignore these complaints, allegations and actions, which required us to initiate an investigation under School disciplinary proceedings.
“The investigation into this incident followed our processes correctly and to their conclusion.”
