7 days ago
Kuwaiti student sues Bangor University after being 'dragged' off stage for pro-Palestine protest
A Kuwait student is suing her former UK university for violating her free speech after it prevented her from peacefully protesting the institution's investments in Israel during her graduation ceremony.
Aishah AlBader has filed a legal claim against Bangor University in Wales for assault, battery, false imprisonment and breach of her human rights.
The claim stems from an incident that took place during her graduation ceremony last year. AlBader planned to walk across the stage as she graduated with a pillowcase bearing the message "Bangor University invests in genocide".
But AlBader, who was part of a local student group that campaigned for Bangor University to divest from companies complicit in possible Israeli war crimes, was stopped by four security guards who dragged her off the stage before removing her from the building.
Multiple videos of the incident that gained more than 150,000 views showed several security guards dragging AlBader off the graduation stage from behind in front of hundreds of people.
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The incident, AlBader said, left her physically wounded and embarrassed.
She is now launching her case against Bangor University in the hope that it will stop other students attending British universities from being punished for speaking out "against injustices across the globe and in Palestine".
"Knowing that Bangor University continues to invest in companies complicit in this devastation, I felt I could not simply accept my degree in silence. I knew I had to use that platform to centre those oppressed and dehumanised in Palestine," AlBader said in a statement through her lawyers.
'I held up a pillowcase reading 'Bangor University invests in genocide'...I was dragged off stage, injured, and humiliated'
- Aishah AlBader
"I held up a pillowcase reading 'Bangor University invests in genocide'...I was dragged off stage, injured, and humiliated.
"I lost professional opportunities I had worked hard to earn and lived in fear and uncertainty of the future.
"My parents travelled thousands of miles to watch my graduation, and it should have been a moment of joy and pride. I don't believe that holding a pillowcase should ever provoke violence, and the pillowcase I held at my graduation revealed a truth that the university is desperate to hide."
Right to protest
As part of the claim, AlBader's lawyers sent a 20-page letter to Bangor University detailing how she was forcibly removed from the stage by security guards when she attempted to protest the institution's investment portfolio peacefully.
Alexander Hogg, a solicitor representing AlBader, also criticised Bangor University for its actions and described his client as taking a "brave" decision to hold the Welsh university to account.
"Ensuring that universities are held to account when they violate students' right to protest and free speech, such as in the case of my client, not only protects the right to protest and speak out against what is happening in Palestine, it protects the right to protest and speak out on all issues of public importance for everyone," said Hogg.
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"Safeguarding freedom of expression and the right to protest requires upholding them not only when it is convenient but when it is uncomfortable – such as during graduation ceremonies when principled students draw much-needed public attention to universities' unethical investments."
Following Israel's war on Gaza in October 2023, UK campuses have been set alight with campaigns targeting universities' investments with companies suspected of being complicit with Israeli war crimes.
Last year, several UK university protest groups launched encampments and occupations aimed at pressuring their institution to divest from Israeli companies and other companies suspected of being complicit in Israeli war crimes and end partnerships with Israeli institutions.
These encampments led 28 universities to launch disciplinary action against pro-Palestine activists on campus since October 2023, with some, according to an investigation by human rights group Liberty, collaborating with private surveillance firms to spy on their students.
Students at Bangor University also held an encampment for approximately 400 days, before the university issued a 250-page eviction notice against them.
