Bahar Mustafa: Student officer who allegedly posted 'kill all white men' to face malicious communications charges

The Goldsmiths welfare and diversity officer has been summonsed to court to face two charges

Tom Brooks-Pollock
Tuesday 06 October 2015 15:15 BST
Bahar Mustafa
Bahar Mustafa

A student diversity officer who was caught up in a racism row after allegedly posting 'kill all white men' on social media has been summonsed to court to face malicious communications charges.

Bahar Mustafa, 28, of Edmonton, North London, a welfare and diversity officer at Goldsmiths University, will appear at Bromley Magistrates' Court on 5 November, police said.

Ms Mustafa will face two charges, one of sending a threatening message between 10 November 2014 and 31 May this year, and one of sending a menacing or offensive message via a public network, between the same dates.

She provoked a backlash after posting a message on Facebook asking white people not to attend an event for black and ethnic minority students in April.

An student petition calling for her to be removed from her position garnered only 165 signatures, and she was allowed by the student union to keep her job, because it failed to meet the 3% threshold to trigger a referendum that could have dislodged her.

Ms Mustafa became the focus of national media attention after posting the message requesting white peope do not attend the event for black and ethnic minority women last month.

She defended herself in an online video, describing the criticism she faced as an "outrageous distortion of fact".

Ms Mustafa explained that she could not be guilty of sexism or racism against white men "because racism and sexism describe structures of privilege based on race and gender and therefore women of colour and minority genders cannot be racist or sexist, since we do not stand to benefit from such a system."

But she said her use of the term "white trash" - an offensive American term referring to poor white people following the Great Depression - on an official account had been "not professional".

Ms Mustafa has reportedly received racist and sexist abuse and death threats after the controversy was reported by the media.

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