London
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Usama Ghanem learned the stifling censorship that shrouded public spaces in Egypt early in life, and still recalls criticizing the “stupid” regime under former President Hosni Mubarak in elementary school. Immediately, his teacher hushed him.
“Nobody was allowed to say anything,” Ghanem, now a 22-year-old student in London, told CNN in December. “When you are in opposition to the regime, everyone makes you feel that you’re a crazy person.”
A child of the Arab Spring, Ghanem grew up under the shadow of authoritarianism in Cairo. He remembers witnessing first-hand the “horrifying” Rabaa massacre in 2013 and says he was politically persecuted by Egyptian authorities before moving to the United Kingdom in 2022 to study. Now, he faces what he describes as “Egypt, take two” at a prestigious academic institution in Britain after he took part in pro-Palestinian protests, prompting disciplinary action which could see him deported within days.
In May, senior leadership at King’s College London (KCL) indefinitely suspended Ghanem and moved to revoke his visa sponsorship, following three reviews over his involvement in student-led protests calling for the liberation of the Palestinian people from Israel’s bombing and siege in Gaza. KCL has leveled allegations of non-academic misconduct against Ghanem, outlining “regulatory” and “procedural breaches,” “health and safety concerns,” “offensive or abusive behaviour” and “operational obstruction,” according to a letter sent by senior leadership.
University officials advised Ghanem “to return to your Home country” until they review his suspension in August of this year, in a letter seen by CNN. Their decision came into effect on November 28, when the UK Home Office sent formal notice of his visa cancellation, in email correspondence seen by CNN. “We advise you to be prepared to leave within 60 days from today,” the memo reads – that is, January 27. No criminal charges have been brought against Ghanem, according to his legal team in Britain.
When asked about Ghanem’s visa cancellation, the UK Home Office told CNN: “It is our longstanding policy to not comment on individual cases.”
Ghanem does not have lawful immigration status in a third country, making it likely that he will be deported within days to Egypt. He fears he could be imprisoned upon his return to the country – where he alleges that in 2020 security forces detained him, then aged 16, along with his brother and their father, who has since passed away, over their political dissent. Ghanem alleges he was beaten, electrocuted and starved in detention, according to the legal case he has filed against the university.
Those who are openly critical of the Egyptian government are likely to be at risk of “persecution or serious harm,” according to country guidance published by the UK Home Office, including “arbitrary arrests and detention.”
KCL leadership are aware of the alleged abuse Ghanem faced in Egypt, and his post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis, his legal case says. The case claims breaches of human rights, assault, personal injury, discrimination and harassment on the part of KCL.
A university spokesperson told CNN that students at KCL “are not disciplined for lawful affiliations, including support for pro-Palestine views, nor for participating in lawful protests,” in a statement on January 13. “It is incorrect to suggest students with different perspectives are treated differently,” the spokesperson said.
Hundreds of staff and students have rallied behind Ghanem’s case, his lawyers say, warning that university officials risk endangering his life and demanding they reverse course. Among his supporters are more than 40 academics from the King’s Race Research Network (KRRN) – an internal network of 80 scholars based at the university – who formally wrote to senior management and accused them of being “institutionally racist” in their actions, in a November letter seen by CNN.
Ghanem told CNN his family had faced “continuous distress” in recent weeks – adding that the prospect of him being deported to Egypt was “incredibly disheartening and awful” but that he was determined to press his case.
“I’ve seen what happens when people don’t challenge authority,” he said. “I left an authoritarian regime in Egypt to find one in King’s College London. And I believe that dictators and authoritarianism are to be challenged, not accepted.”
As a teenager, Ghanem set his sights on studying abroad to improve his political literacy after watching his father, a microbiology professor at Ain Shams University, Cairo, use academic spaces to mobilize opinion.
Those ambitions sharpened in March 2020, when Ghanem says Egyptian authorities unleashed an “appalling” dawn raid on his family home in Cairo.
“(Forces) were all ballied (balaclava-ed) up, weapons, guns in their hands… You have this masked man who’s telling you to get on the ground as a 16-year-old,” Ghanem told CNN. “I never wanted my story to be seen through the lens of the torture survivor.”
Police and security forces have a track record of detaining critics of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on charges that appear “to be solely based on their social media posts and peaceful activism,” international rights group Human Rights Watch reported in 2018.
Authorities later imprisoned and tortured Ghanem, his brother and father for their opposition to the regime, he alleged. CNN has reached out to the Egyptian foreign ministry and the Egyptian government’s Foreign Press Center for comment.
After they were released, family members dispersed from Cairo in search of safety, according to Ghanem. That journey led Ghanem to KCL, where he started an undergraduate international relations degree in 2022 – in the hope, he told CNN, of returning to the Arab region to work towards sustainable human rights frameworks, and freedom of assembly.
“The Middle East region desperately needs this political education,” he said.
But everything changed after October 7, 2023, Ghanem said, when Israel launched its campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led attacks.
As the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the enclave spiralled, Ghanem and hundreds of other KCL students felt compelled to act. They circulated petitions, formed an on-campus encampment in May 2024, staged sit-ins and called on KCL to strip funds from several weapons manufacturers and tech companies tied to Israel – broadly replicating campus activism around the world.
In the ensuing months, KCL launched disciplinary reviews against Ghanem over his alleged actions on three separate occasions – “deliberately disrupting” an alumni dinner in June 2024; demonstrating against a talk hosted by a pro-Israel, Iranian speaker in February 2025; and then, in May, demanding that the university divest from companies profiting from Israel’s miliary actions, at the London Defence Conference. The head of security at KCL also claimed that Ghanem was “one of the main organisers of the encampment” on campus, which he denied.
KCL leadership has launched disciplinary action against 28 students in total over their pro-Palestinian activism, Ghanem’s lawyers told CNN. CNN reached out to KCL for comment.
Disciplinary action is taken only when “behaviour breaches our policies and regulations,” the KCL spokesperson told CNN last week. In this instance, that includes “forcible entry into private events, injury to security staff, and denying fellow students their own right to freedom of speech,” the spokesperson added. “Decisions regarding visa status in the UK rest solely with the Home Office.” CNN has reached out to Ghanem’s lawyers for comment on the allegations.
“Finally, we want to emphasise that many peaceful protests, vigils, and contentious debates that reflect our diverse student body have been – and will continue to be – held at King’s,” the KCL spokesperson said.
British universities have jurisdiction over the issuance of visa sponsorships for international scholars. Students must be “attending and actively engaging” with their studies to meet the conditions of their stay, according to KCL guidance.
If a student is suspended, the university notifies the UK Home Office, leading to a deadline by which they “must leave” the UK, or apply for a new visa under a different immigration category, the guidance says.
One British lecturer – Lewis Turner, the co-vice president of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) – says the case underscores what he describes as an “authoritarian” crackdown by US and UK universities that he argues has disproportionately targeted Muslim students and students of color for lawful expressions of Palestinian solidarity. In the United States, the Trump administration has used its powers to revoke student visas and instigate deportations and even detentions of foreign scholars who have condemned Israel’s military actions in Gaza, among them Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, and Momodou Taal.
And in the UK, Ghanem’s case is playing out against the background of a politically charged climate in which the ruling Labour Party has drawn fire from rights groups over hardened immigration policies in response to a surge in anti-migrant rhetoric.
Over the past two years, universities have increasingly penalized scholars for voicing lawful opinions about Palestine and Israel, according to Turner, fitting into “a much wider pattern of repression of student activism and protest on campuses.”
Turner, who chairs the BRISMES Committee on Academic Freedom, was co-signatory of a letter the body sent to KCL leadership in November regarding Ghanem’s case. He added that complaints over political disagreement have been reframed around safety or harassment, which can restrict freedom of expression.
Against the backdrop of war in the Middle East, occurrences of both antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate around the world have increased sharply, according to advocacy groups, including lethal attacks.
In December, two gunmen targeted Jewish families celebrating Hannukah on a beach in Sydney, Australia, killing 15 people. Weeks earlier, two Jewish worshippers were killed in an attack outside a synagogue in Manchester, northern England.
And near the US city of Chicago, a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy was fatally stabbed in October 2023 for being Muslim.
Some Jewish student groups say campus protests have fuelled intimidation and antisemitism. But others say accusations of antisemitism have been used to suppress legitimate criticism of Israel’s government. Ghanem’s case has prompted some condemnation online from pro-Israel commentators.
The UK-based Jewish Voice for Liberation (JVL) “does not feel threatened by pro-Palestinian protests,” the group’s membership secretary Mike Cushman told CNN last week. “Students’ actions are overwhelmingly not aimed at Jews as Jews but at supporters of Israeli genocide and apartheid, whether or not they are Jewish,” said Cushman, who added that the group was “distressed” by Ghanem’s suspension.
Turner, the BRISMES academic, urged universities to facilitate nuanced discussions, instead of conflating hate speech with “criticism of Israel, or Israeli government policies” and thereby fostering a “chilling” culture of self-censorship – especially among international students from marginalized communities. That chimes with warnings from the UN special rapporteur for freedom of opinion and expression, Irene Khan, who previously said, “Criticising Israel is perfectly legitimate under international law.”
“Having universities as open spaces of dialogue and criticism and debate is foundational to a democratic society,” said Turner. “And that’s much more important than whether you agree with or disagree with any individual.”
