A controversial talk due to be held at Manchester Metropolitan University this afternoon was cancelled over fears it could have incited hatred or discrimination.
Campaigners from Human Rights activist group Absent Justice had organised the event which was due to feature speakers believed to have extreme views regarding religion, race and sexuality.
The group initially said the event was organised by the charity CagePrisoners, a Human Rights organisation which aims to raise awareness of the plight of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other such places.
However, co-ordinator Muryum Khan revealed this was not the case, and the charity was only named to increase publicity.
In fact, the university say they had no idea the event was being held until yesterday – and when it was brought to their attention they decided to cancel.
A spokesman for Manchester Metropolitan University said: “It looks like somebody tried to jump protocol to get a meeting in that might not have been approved.
“We have a zero tolerance policy to anything that might incite hatred or discrimination.
“The event had not been booked properly so the university could not decide whether it was appropriate.”
Campaigners from the website Student Rights, which vows to ‘tackle extremism on campuses’, highlighted alleged links that the speakers and their topics have to groups including Al-Qaeda.
They indicate that the event was organised under a different name, so the university was left under false pretence, a claim which the Manchester Met spokesman did not deny.
Speakers were due to include lawyer Nasir Hafezi, former Guantanamo detainee Omar Deghayes and Jahanghir Mohammed, all of whom have been outspoken critics of the UK’s terror laws.
Student Rights also drew comparisons between the Absent Justice activists and a group called the Global Aspirations of Women Society, who were involved in a controversy regarding homophobia in February.
Manchester Metropolitan was dragged into a row over sexuality, after a speaker at a talk allegedly organised by the group said homosexuality was an ‘atrocity, because it goes against what God says’ and supported the killing of gay men.
Student Rights claim the Absent Justice group and those behind the February talk, which aired extremist views, are one and the same – an allegation completely refuted by Absent Justice co-ordinator Muryum Khan.
“We have nothing to do with that at all,” the 21-year-old Salford University student told MM.
“We are totally separate – we only share universal concepts of Human Rights and every human values that.
“I am very shocked the event has been cancelled and the Student Rights article is making false allegations.
“We’re not inciting discrimination at all – things in the past have been taken out of context,” she added.
“Whatever the [Student Rights] article is claiming is not based on any evidence.”
The Absent Justice campaigners were in Piccadilly Gardens yesterday dressed in orange prison jumpsuits with black sacks placed over their heads.
They were protesting against the continuous breaches of the Human Rights of prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay.
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