Disturbing intimidatory tactics used by students to undermine anti-terrorist measures on university campuses can be revealed today.
Activists are targeting anyone connected to the Government’s Prevent programme – which seeks to tip off the security services about potential extremists.
In one example, students at Islamic State executioner Jihadi John’s former university launched a direct action campaign to make a Muslim staff member’s life ‘hell’ for his involvement in the scheme.
Interfaith adviser Yusuf Kaplan was branded a ‘fake Muslim’ and demonstrators said they hoped he would ‘die’.
Thirty protesters stormed Westminster University’s headquarters to demand his sacking.
Activists are targeting anyone connected to the Government’s Prevent programme – which seeks to tip off the security services about potential extremists. Yusuf Kaplan (left), who works at Jihadi John’s (right) former university in Westminster, was branded a ‘fake Muslim’
Farah Koutteineh (pictured), the president of the Westminster University Palestine Society, orchestrated a protest calling for Mr Kaplan’s sacking
They also descended on Mr Kaplan’s office to hurl abuse through a megaphone, screaming ‘shame’ and chanting ‘say it loud, say it clear, Kaplan not welcome here’.
The personal intimidation is part of an orchestrated nationwide plot by hard-Left students to sabotage Prevent, which was made a legal requirement on campuses after a string of Islamist terrorists were groomed at UK universities.
The protest against Mr Kaplan was supported by undergraduates across London, including student leaders from the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas).
Westminster University last night condemned the calls to fire Mr Kaplan, as a terrorism expert said it was ‘completely unacceptable hounding’ of a man trying to protect students and the public. A Daily Mail investigation found:
- A student leader at University College London said anyone arrested campaigning against Prevent was ‘doing something right’;
- The anti-Prevent protest was backed online by Cage, the organisation dubbed ‘apologists for terrorism’ after describing Jihadi John as a ‘beautiful young man’;
- Soas student union is being investigated by the Charity Commission for refusing to comply with Prevent and over concerns it is being used to promote ‘extremists or extremist views or any other unlawful activity’.
Westminster students joined with the Soas student union for a ‘three-day action’ against Prevent earlier this month culminating in a march through central London and the ‘hounding’ of Mr Kaplan.
An undercover Daily Mail reporter attended a ‘crisis meeting’ about Prevent held at a Soas lecture theatre, where journalists and non-students were kicked out before a Soas Masters student warned those present not to record the speakers as ‘they might say things that put them in danger’ Former public schoolboy Ayo Olatunji – a third-year medical student at UCL and student union leader – then urged students to ‘disrupt’ Prevent even if it meant arrest.
He said: ‘If you look at history … the people who make the change are those who get arrested, or have been demonised … If that sounds like you in this climate then you’re doing something right.’
Farah Koutteineh, an international relations student and president of the Westminster University Palestine Society, told the meeting Mr Kaplan was the ‘core of the problem’. She made a number of claims against him, including that he had ‘shredded Korans’, turned Islamic prayer rooms into multifaith rooms and tried to ban most of the society’s speakers.
The university said that when the prayer room became a multifaith room for use by all, including Muslims, unused Korans were left in it despite several months notice to remove all items. The Korans were later disposed of according to Islamic principles after consulting religious leaders. It added that Mr Kaplan had no role in vetting external speakers.
At an eight-hour ‘protest workshop’ at Soas the next day, students plotted to target Mr Kaplan as they made banners denouncing him. One activist said, ‘I hope he dies’, some called him a ‘fake Muslim’ and others said, ‘let’s make his life hell’. Miss Koutteineh ran the workshop and was in the room when all the comments were made.
Mr Olatunji was not at the workshop, but the following day he joined her and about 30 other students for a three-hour protest in central London – which led to police being called as they picketed the BBC’s Broadcasting House.
Outside Mr Kaplan’s office, a protester said into a microphone: ‘Kaplan we know you can hear us.’ Another waved a placard warning, ‘This is only the beginning’, while Miss Koutteineh held one saying, ‘Kaplan is watching you’, with a picture of a CCTV camera – an apparent reference to her complaint that he had installed them in the university’s Islamic prayer rooms. The university said cameras were briefly installed in 2015 after someone using the rooms was attacked but they had all been removed.
The march ended with an hour-long sit-in at Westminster University’s Regent Campus calling for Mr Kaplan’s sacking. Deputy vice chancellor Professor Roland Dannreuther tried to reason with the activists and pointed out they were ‘vilifying’ Mr Kaplan.
Protestors also descended on Mr Kaplan’s office to hurl abuse through a megaphone, screaming ‘shame’ and chanting ‘say it loud, say it clear, Kaplan not welcome here’
Soas student union has boycotted Prevent since it was introduced and the union openly promoted the three days of action on social media. In November, students in Sussex, Bristol, Leicester, Manchester and London all took part in protests demanding an end to Prevent. It was part of a tour of campuses organised by the NUS.
A previous tour in 2015 included events campaigning against Prevent at Birmingham, Glasgow and Swansea universities.
Terrorism expert Professor Anthony Glees, of Buckingham University, said the protest targeting Mr Kaplan was ‘totally unacceptable behaviour’. Prevent is ‘not an obligation on lecturers to spy on students’, he said, adding that staff ‘have a duty of care … to prevent them being drawn into extremism’.
‘The hounding of this man is unacceptable and inconsistent with what should go on in a university.’ Westminster University said it supports students’ rights to make their voices heard through peaceful protest, but a spokesman added: ‘The university condemns the public naming of a member of our staff and the calls for his removal.’
A Soas spokesman said its approach to Prevent was primarily ‘safeguarding the welfare our students and staff’ but that this is ‘balanced against our fundamental commitment to academic freedom’.
Mr Olatunji said: ‘Students from different universities and a wide range of student groups organised independently and protested against the implementation of the widely discredited Prevent duty at the University of Westminster.
‘Yusuf Kaplan has been identified as a key figurehead in pushing for draconian implementation of this policy … The protest was intended to disrupt actions at the university and push for increased transparency … which it has successfully done.’
Miss Koutteineh did not respond to requests for comment.
Poor, little rich kids who spout hatred
MIDDLE CLASS CHEERLEADER FOR TERRORIST GROUPS
Farah Koutteineh, an international relations student at Westminster University orchestrated the campaign demanding the sacking of Yusuf Kaplan. The 20-year-old identified the interfaith adviser as the ‘core problem’ at a meeting before the protest and led 30 demonstrators to his office where she egged them on in a chant of ‘shame’.
As head of the student Palestinian Society she has held events celebrating women including Leila Khaled, the world’s first female terrorist hijacker and later leader of the terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The daughter of a charity director and a journalist, Miss Koutteineh is listed at the £530,000 family home in Twickenham, south-west London.
EU ENVOY’S SON LED DEMO AGAINST CHURCHILL CAFE
Dimitri Cautain helped lead students who burst into a Winston Churchill themed cafe in January denouncing the wartime PM as a ‘racist’. Staff at the Blighty UK Cafe, who include Jewish and Muslim workers, were left terrified.
The students were accused of behaving like ‘fascist thugs’.
Mr Cautain was educated at the £18,000-a-year British International School in Thailand, where his father Jean-Francois Cautain held a European Commission post. His father is now the EU ambassador to Pakistan, based in Islamabad.
The social anthropology and politics student at the School of African and Oriental Studies is a union officer and lists ‘marching and pushing cops off campus’ among his interests.
At the protest, Mr Cautain helped carry the giant loudspeaker through which chants of ‘shame’ were made against Mr Kaplan. He did not respond to requests for comment.
Dimitri Cautain, pictured with Farah Koutteineh, helped lead students who burst into a Winston Churchill themed cafe in January denouncing the wartime PM as a ‘racist’
EX-PUBLIC SCHOOLBOY AND WOULD-BE ‘REVOLUTIONARY’
Medical student and self-proclaimed ‘revolutionary’ Ayo Olatunji urged undergraduates to ‘disrupt’ Prevent even if it meant arrest.
Former public schoolboy Mr Olatunji, who is the black and minority ethnic students’ officer at UCL, studied at the private King’s School, Rochester, where he played for the rugby first XV.
The 21-year-old criticised Mr Kaplan at the demonstration and led a chant of ‘shame’ against Westminster University’s implementation of Prevent, before warning it would need more security guards to deal with the growing ‘radical action’ against it. After his speech Mr Olatunji blocked the road and stopped a mother with a 15-month-old baby in her car from getting past, even as she pleaded with him.
Medical student and self-proclaimed ‘revolutionary’ Ayo Olatunji urged undergraduates to ‘disrupt’ Prevent even if it meant arrest
EX-STUDENT CHIEF SHAMED BY ANTI-SEMITISM CLAIMS
Malia Bouattia, former hard-Left leader of the NUS, has been a passionate opponent of Prevent. She has taken part in videos calling for students to resist it, and attended the protest against Mr Kaplan in a T-shirt declaring the anti-Prevent slogan, ‘students not suspects’.
The 31-year-old was ousted as NUS president last year amid claims of anti-Semitism and concerns over her radical views.
In 2016, the Commons home affairs committee found her description of Birmingham University as a ‘Zionist outpost’ smacked of ‘outright racism’. She did not respond to a request for comment.
THE SERIAL PROTESTER DEVOTED TO CORBYN
Nisha Phillips, Soas student union officer, helped carry a giant banner at the demonstration and joined in chants denouncing Mr Kaplan.
She grew up in a middle-class suburb of Australian capital Canberra, where her mother is associate professor in human geography at the Australian National University.
Miss Phillips has been pictured on social media with Jeremy Corbyn. She took part in the protest at the Churchill themed cafe. She did not respond to a request for comment.