Cambridge student leader lives in fear after complaint

LONDON: A Pakistani student leader at the Cambridge University has openly accused the university’s certain board members and staff in the Graduate Union for discriminating against him “on racial grounds” but the student leader faces hostility for going public about his concerns.
After this newspaper highlighted the difficulties of Arsalan Ghani – student from Faisalabad who was elected in March this year to head the union on full time basis – local media in Cambridge picked up the issue and called these allegations as “scathing attack” on the Cambridge student bodies.
Speaking to The Cambridge Student TCS newspaper, GU President Ghani said: “I have launched a complaint to the university authorities in this matter who are investigating. I have all the necessary evidences. Further information, I can only provide after consultation with my lawyers.”
But the same news report totally ignored the above statement and concluded “to date, we have not been able to find any evidence of racist behavior”. The report in effect attempted to deny natural justice to a person who claims that he has been a victim of racial discrimination. The same newspaper played vital role in the campaign against African-Caribbean candidate during CUSU elections and slandered her as “hilariously incompetent”.
The former GU President Olivia Watson who has been accused of orchestrating campaign against Arsalan, hit back saying that “changes to the constitution to allow the GU to become a charity - and thus to have a Trustee Board - were started long before Arsalan voiced his intentions to run for President. The suggestion that I manipulated the Constitution to gain a place on the Trustee Board is particularly bizarre, since I left before the new Constitution came into effect and am not a Trustee”.
CUSU LGBT chair Charlie Bell said that it was “totally unfair” to “attack Cambridge students as somehow being against minority groups”.
Varsity, the independent Cambridge student newspaper published since 1947, said it had received reports that Ghani had “systematic campaign - at times underhand” against him. The paper speculated that the antagonism towards Ghani may have stemmed at least in part from his political views because he is a “well-known left-wing campaigner” as he is actively involved with the Cambridge Marxist Society. The source to Varsity quoted: “Covert racism definitely exists in Cambridge student society. Had the president been white, I don’t believe he would have received the same level of antagonism and abuse.”
One of the local publications went on to criticise the publishing of the original exclusive report of discrimination allegation but a source at the University’s administration told this correspondent that the prestigious university’s senior figures were highly concerned that a relatively internal matter had gone global and carried serious implications to the reputation of the university which heavily depends on sizeable international students.
According to reports received by this correspondent, Ghani has been deprived of his authorities and role in the union as a President and encountered lot of problems from a certain group of board members.
His responsibilities as a president were cut down by making changes to the union constitution overnight by the previous president and those board members leaving behind serious flaws in the constitution. According to internal Cambridge sources, the group opposed to ethnic minorities, has established strong network in the Cambridge University. The far-right English Defense League (EDL) and racist British National Party (BNP) has a lot of support base in Cambridge.
Racism in Cambridge University is not new. Sources close to Arsalan stated that he is facing serious threats and victimization after launching complaint to the University and highlighting the issue.