Pro-Palestine students in UK university face expulsion for sharing Middle East Eye posts
Student protestors marching at the University of Essex to oppose disciplinary hearings against six student activists, March 2025
Areeb Ullah reports in Middle East Eye on 12 March 2025:
A group of students at the University of Essex are facing potential expulsion after sharing a series of social media posts, including a video published by Middle East Eye marking the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Last August, the University of Essex Students’ Union informed the university’s Palestine Solidarity Society that it may have breached the student conduct code for allegedly “supporting a proscribed group”.
The breach stems from concerns raised about posts shared on the society’s Instagram page following the assassination of Haniyeh in Iran, and days later when Israel confirmed that it had killed the Hamas leader.
The university later formally informed six students involved with the society in September that they were under investigation for the Instagram posts and could face possible expulsion. The University of Essex did not respond to multiple requests for comment at the time of writing.
A document compiled by the university as evidence against the students and given to MEE showed it had based its investigation into the six students on several posts from its Instagram page.
Two posts included in the university’s evidence bundle are from Middle East Eye’s Instagram page. One is a video clip of an interview with Haniyeh broadcast by Al Jazeera Arabic in July 2024, explaining Hamas’s motivations in fighting Israel. Another is a photo carousel of notable commentators, including former Al Jazeera English director-general Wadah Khanfar, marking Haniyeh’s death.