There is now a petition for Sussex to disaffiliate from the NUS

Sussex Student Union have put out a petition calling for Sussex’s commitment to disaffiliate from the NUS.

The petition was called by Deniz Karaman, a student here at Sussex. Deniz is angry at the NUS  because it is now being led by Malia Bouattia  who has been accused of antisemitism and is greatly annoyed at the Anti-Democratic nature of the NUS.

Deniz said: “To label the University of Birmingham a Zionist outpost, implying there is an inherent problem with it having a large Jewish Society is an unforgivable slur.”

The petition is calling for a referendum that students can vote whether or not we should stay in the NUS.

Deniz has not personally been affected by the comments of Malia but has said that “being oppressive towards Jewish students shows a general intolerance to people that you don’t agree with”.

A number of Universities have also similar campaigns to leave the NUS with the likes of Oxford, Cambridge, Nottingham, King’s College, with many others joining the list. Exeter is to start action for proposing to leave the NUS starting in May. A full list can be found here

Malia has received a lot of opposition within her first week in charge

Malia has come out in defense of her actions. She has stated that she against “Racism and Fascism in all its forms” and has argued her involvement in her rejection of the NUS condemnation of ISIS was due to the wording that seemed to condemn all Muslims.

She has also spoken against claims of her being Anti-Semitic by stating that she is against the media’s apparent support for Israel’s actions which breach human rights in which she is firmly against.

The petition, that is currently on the Sussex Union website, is calling for all students to oppose the NUS for it’s lack of representation of the 7 million students in the UK. More on the petition can be found here