Islamic Extremism debate cancelled by UoM

So much for free speech


The Manchester Debating Union’s debate, “Is the West to blame for Islamic Extremism?” was cancelled yesterday by the University due to security concerns.

The cancellation was announced yesterday morning on the Facebook event. The post said that they had been “forced to cancel this debate by the University” as the event “would require a security presence which they were unable to organise”.

The debate was due to take place at 5pm in the Roscoe Building.

News of the cancellation was posted on the Facebook event today.

This follows the controversial events of October 2015, when Milo Yiannopoulos and Julie Bindel were banned from speaking at the Free Speech society event by the Student’s Union.

The Debating Union told us that “it was the University, not the Students Union” that blocked this event due to not being able to organise a sufficient security presence in time for the event.

The Free Speech and Secular society said that they couldn’t comment on this particular event as they did not know the specific details. However they added “We are for all speech to be allowed that is within the law. The University of Manchester has been very supportive in the past[…] we expect the University will facilitate the event at a later date.”

MDU’s next planned debate, titled “This House Would Leave the European Union” is scheduled to take place on the 28th of April.

@jakebell96