When Usama Ghanem was accepted to study International Relations at King's College London (KCL) in the UK, he was excited to attend a globally renowned university, with its rigorous world studies department and its supposed protection of freedom of expression.
Being a political dissident from Egypt, where he had been tortured and imprisoned for his activism, Ghanem was looking forward to expressing his opinions freely and protesting for the rights of Palestinians.
But Ghanem soon found out that the reality at KCL was very different when he was indefinitely suspended over his pro-Palestine activism.
"I left an authoritarian regime in Egypt to find one in King's College London," Usama Ghanem told The New Arab. "To find one that represses people for their mere opinion and does the same tactic that the authoritarian regimes in Egypt did, just on a university scale."
After learning about campaigns for KCL to divest from Israel-linked companies, the activist quickly called out the institution's complicity with Israel, protesting in front of the university and starting an encampment.
But after receiving his first disciplinary notice, Ghanem learned that while KCL claimed that it upheld the right to freedom of expression, protesting for Palestine had consequences.
"I felt extremely proud to have represented and have fought for the Palestinian people, [and] extremely proud that I have been in a place where I'm able to fight for those people and hold my university accountable." Ghanem said.
While Ghanem's suspension from KCL was lifted in September after a rigorous 15-month battle, dozens of other students have been disciplined for their activism, with many facing indefinite exclusions.
A damning report by Amnesty International, "Silencing Dissent", found that many institutions, including Oxford, LSE and KCL, have systematically clamped down on students' rights to express themselves and speak out for what they believe in on campus, with Palestine being "at the very sharp end of that".
"Universities are supposed to be places that encourage free expression and critical thought, but instead they are actively punishing or repressing students for doing just that," Hannah Stokes, Amnesty International's community organiser for students, told The New Arab.
Stokes notes the report found cases where students were disciplined for everything from peacefully protesting on campus and wearing keffiyehs to using watermelon emojis in Instagram posts.
The rights group also found that the restrictions documented often fell short of standards in international and UK law regarding political speech and peaceful assembly, noting a harsher crackdown on students who were Muslim.
"So many universities that we research really pride themselves as being these spaces of critical thought, critical inquiry, being a place for academic freedom, they really pride themselves on it," Stokes notes.
"We're wanting to make universities be spaces that they claim to be, we want them to be these spaces that are for critical thought, critical thinking, where students can voice their opinion, where they can engage in defence, and that the university makes them feel safe and enabled and encouraged to do that."
"I think on the ground on our campuses, we've been feeling this for a long time," Will O'Donnell, co-chair of Amnesty International's Student Action Network and anLSE student, told The New Arab, when asked about the report on restrictions on free speech at universities.
"We saw an unprecedented injunction applied on the university territory that basically meant there were ridiculous notices for periods of protest; there were arbitrary protest rules," Will added.
He was a new student at SOAS on 7 October 2023, when Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel and Israel began its genocidal war on Gaza.
"This all kind of culminated in just a really significant atmosphere of repression, of silence, there was specific racialised profiling of students, which was horrible."
O'Donnell recalls the LSC 7, a group of students who faced campus bans in 2024, which impacted their academic careers.
He said that the censorship is not only against pro-Palestine activism, noting the high level of repression against other causes and forms of protest.
"We really need to scrap the restrictive protest rules that we've seen. We need to stop the misuse of disciplinary actions," O'Donnell said. "Universities need to create policies that positively affect students' capacity to engage in protest, to allow students' voices to be heard."
Amnesty International has created the "Defend Dissent Charter", which contains ten recommendations that the rights group is asking universities to adopt in their policies and practices to ensure students on campus have the right to free expression.
The charter aims to turn the recommendations into tangible policy and practice changes that universities implement, in line with what students across the UK are campaigning for.
"The bigger thing that we're trying to fight is to ensure that universities don't become increasingly morally authoritarian and do stay, in an ideal world, as spaces where students can freely express themselves, are encouraged to do so, and are spaces where the next generation of human rights defenders come from," Stokes said.
"Getting universities to sign up to [the charter] is a really key way that we can defend this right and make sure that universities are faces of critical thought, critical speech, and where dissent is encouraged."
Looking back on the whole ordeal, Ghanem said it showed him the importance of standing up for justice, but also the need to ensure what happened to him will not happen to any other student who wants to protest.
"I don't want any other student to feel that their future is under threat because they stood for what's right and they stood against the genocide," Ghanem said.
"I think by universities adopting the charter and the commitments that it makes, it serves as a step in the right direction to make sure that no other student ever faces that again."