On a foggy Tuesday evening students trickled into a hall at Pleasance for Amnesty UK’s Defend Dissent Tour: an event that, at its crux, was a conversation about freedom and the shrinking space students are permitted to occupy.
Hannah Stokes, a community organiser with Amnesty UK, opened with a memory. As a student activist, she once worked with a great many coalitions across faculties, staff and local communities to push her university to divest from weapons manufacturers. She emphasised how “even in the tensest discussions with management” her “right to dissent felt unchallenged.” She further emphasised: “I was never surveyed, threatened, or disciplined simply for standing against injustice. But today, that’s not the case for many students.”
Her opening set the tone for the rest of the event, one that insisted on the increasingly restrictive climate surrounding student activism and underlined the tightening constraints on political speech in the UK, from the policing of protestors to the bureaucratic retractions of dissent on campus. She mentioned how students protesting human rights abuses, racial injustice or the explicit ties prestigious institutions have to violence and war face disciplinary action, often without basis.
Fear was a recurring theme across the two hours. Edinburgh Amnesty Society’s committee member Zya told The Student: “[Fear] is specifically engineered to serve fascism. We need to recognise how the soft roots of fascism start to spread on our own campus.”
Throughout the event, speakers and attendees pointed to a pattern suggesting that the repression of student movements isn’t accidental. Universities which are supposed to be the birthplace of social change – from anti-apartheid organising to feminist movements – are sites of challenge, making them dangerous to those in power. Zya added: “They don’t want us to realise the power we have,” before closing with: “All change movements begin on campuses.”
While this claim could be brushed off as hyperbolic in some cases, it landed with an uncomfortable clarity. Reports by Amnesty UK (presented privately at the event and due for public release in early 2026) describe students being racially profiled for protest involvement, pressured to remove vigils, and warned against any expression that clashes with institutional reputational interests.
The event also featured alumni speakers, including former committee member Sage Setty, who told The Student she is now involved in a number of “solidarity campaigns” aimed at spreading awareness and support for marginalised groups, such as Hindus for Human Rights.
Karishma Patel, an ex-BBC journalist and one of the event’s speakers, noted the persistent “fear of repercussions” that shadows young activists. Seeing today’s students raising their voices, she joked with colleagues that “the kids are alright.” She spoke about her own decision to leave the corporation, a choice with costs and the inevitable “sacrifices” that come with standing up for what is right.
Today, dissent comes with layered anxieties. It’s tied to future employability, background checks and risks of any post, tweet or photo resurfacing. The freedom to protest is now entangled within a career-conscious culture where every action can be archived and weaponised.
The event opened with Mariam Barghouti, a Palestinian journalist speaking live from the West Bank. With the pragmatic intensity of someone reporting under occupation, she reminded the audience: “Journalism is adversarial to power.” Often treated as an abstract rallying cry, her presence reframed the quote as a lived reality; a reminder of the power ordinary people hold and the necessity of resistance in the face of repression.
Are students still free to dissent? Defend Dissent was not a neutral colloquium. It was a reminder that the democratic right to protest, once considered inseparable from student life, is increasingly conditional.
Throughout the evening, speakers returned to a single salient message, as Stokes put it: “What does it mean that these spaces are becoming places of repression and punishment? If we care about the advancement of human rights and challenging injustice, then we must defend the right to speak out and protest here on our campuses and across all of society.”
The event concluded with a practical call: Amnesty’s campaign is student-built, and students were called to form teams to spread awareness and hold societies, academics, and administration accountable. The tour is designed to extend beyond a single talk, with online launches and events in Newcastle and London. What Amnesty UK and Edinburgh’s Amnesty Society undertake next may determine the future shape of dissent on UK campuses.
Photo by Gayati Malhotra on Unsplash.