We spoke to the guy behind tomorrow’s referendum on censorship

After the Students’ Union banned The Sun, The Star and The Express, Students Against Censorship movement was formed to protect freedom of speech. As the student vote to re-appeal the ban will take place this Friday, we spoke to one of the founders, Ieuan Joy to find out what exactly is driving them.

Why did you set up the campaign?

Because at a place of academic learning, universities seem to be the institutions in the UK with the biggest problem with free speech. That’s not right at a place which should be about learning, exploring and confronting new ideas. I feel that this culture of viewing free speech with disdain has to change. It’s been happening over the last – I would say – three years, and it’s became a problem which hasn’t been properly challenged at Aber uni. So me and Jessica Lockwood set up ‘Students Against Censorship’ in response.

At present, on campus, what do you think is the most pressing issue in regards to censorship?

At Aberystwyth University, the ban of sale of certain newspapers is quite pressing. A free press is an essential pillar of our democracy. Nationally though, the NUS no-platform policy worries me. No-platforming as a policy is essentially an institution saying: “Sorry we don’t like to be challenged or engage in a stimulating healthy debate”.

Ieuan Joy, one of the co-founders of Students Against Censorship

Can you describe your interaction with the union in regards to getting a referendum on the ‘Boobs Are Not News’ motion?

I give credit where credit’s due, the SU have been helpful in obviously allowing the referendum to even be organised, thus giving students the right to a free vote on the issue. However, the process has been very bureaucratic. The original date of the vote was meant to be the 25^th February, now it has been pushed forward, to this Friday, 11th March. There was also disagreement over the wording of the motion.

The union have said that the removal of papers is a “boycott” not a “ban”. What are your thoughts on this?

The student union trying to put a positive spin on it does not help anyone. Everyone can see that it is banned from sale, thus trying to deny that is simply sugar-coating at best and at worst, lying to students. A major problem with censorship is denial of motives: they patronisingly claim to be “protecting” students by banning the sale of certain newspapers and then simultaneously have the ability to deny that they are committing censorship.

 Aside from campaigning to remove the ban against The Express, The Sun and The Star, what other campaigns are Students Against Censorship doing?

LSE and Kings College have carried out a “Humans For Free Speech Campaign”. Students who are for free speech write about what free speech means to them and then submit it to a Facebook page filled with other people’s opinions on the issue of free speech. I hope this will create a discussion at university between students on the importance and the meaning of free speech, as well as allowing students to express their opinion when before they may have felt pressured not to.

What future projects do you have in mind for Students Against Censorship?

Working with societies within Aberystwyth and anticensorship groups outside of Aber. There is a growing network of anti-censorship societies being set up at universities, LSE being a good example of this. Funnily enough the LSE free speech society almost got banned last week. We think that the fight for free speech is a national one, so we wish to help generate what is potentially a huge student movement. Locally we want to work with other societies to help them bring in provocative speakers, even fundraise to help groups bring in the speakers they want. We are looking into a little project where we have taken inspiration from Oxford but that one we will keep closer to the chest until we have a definite plan of carrying that out to see if it’s possible by next academic year.