20 Dec 2022; MEMO: Students at Queen Mary University, London, have voted to disaffiliate from the National Union of Students (NUS) in response to Shaima Dallali being fired as president.
Queen Mary Students' Union accused the NUS of having "contributed to the spread of anti-Palestinian racism" by firing Dallali, and described her removal as an "affront to the democratic nature that the NUS purports to obtain".
"This decision means that the Students' Union will cease to engage with the NUS's political activities, campaigning and representative processes, including the National Conference, with immediate effect," a statement on the university's website says.
The NUS announced in early November that it had dismissed Dallali following an independent code-of-conduct investigation into allegations of anti-Semitism.
The investigation came after aggressive Zionist groups, including the Union of Jewish Students (UJS), published an open letter expressing concern about a social media post that the 26-year-old wrote more than ten years ago. The post in question made reference to a battle that took place in the early 7th century between Muslims and the Jewish inhabitants of Khaybar, an oasis in the Arabian Peninsula. It suggested that the "army of Muhammad" will return to Gaza.
Writing on Twitter, Dallali revealed that she only found out that she had been sacked via a post on the social media platform yesterday, ironically the first day of Islamophobia Awareness Month. "That is unacceptable," she insisted.
Dallali, 27, was born to a Tunisian father and a Sudanese mother. She came to Britain in 2000 and studied at the City University of London, obtaining a Master's degree in Law.
