UK: GOVERNMENT’S COUNTERTERRORISM IS LIMITING TEXTS AND TOPICS STUDENTS CAN ACCESS, EXPERTS SAY
December 17, 2018 in News by RBN Staff
via: BLACKLISTED NEWS
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT UK
‘We are entering a situation where thought becomes dangerous,’ one professor warns
A counterterrorism strategy has created a “culture of fear” across UK universities where freedom of expression and open debate is being stifled, experts and campaigners warn.
The government’s Prevent duty, which requires institutions to “have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”, is having a “chilling effect” on free speech on campus, critics say.
The warnings come as The Independent has learned that at least four different academic materials have been flagged at a university over the past two years in response to the counterextremism programme.
Under a University of Reading policy, students and staff are required to tell the institution if they plan to access texts that are potentially “sensitive” to avoid falling foul of Prevent.
So far, academics have requested student access for a left-wing essay on the ethics of socialist revolution, as well as access to the Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla by a Brazilian revolutionary.
