THOUSANDS of people have signed an online petition opposing a ban on the funding of pro-life groups at a Scottish university.
The petition hosted on the global Christian activism website CitizenGo has already attracted more than 5,000 signatures.
The development comes after pro-life students from Strathclyde University, in Glasgow, wrote to the institution asking officials to intervene in a row over their rights to funding.
The letter - from pro-life students to the institution's ruling Court - came after moves to overturn a ban on pro-life groups receiving financial support from the University of Strathclyde Students' Association (USSA) was rejected.
The Student Parliament voted down a request to change the policy despite arguments that restricting funding stifled freedom of speech and freedom of beliefs.
The protest petition, directed to Professor Sir Jim McDonald, principal of Strathclyde University, says: "The free exchange of ideas and discussion are being suppressed at universities and sadly, Strathclyde appears to be no exception.
"This is a clear censoring and restricting of the freedom of speech of a large body of students who happen to dissent from the majority opinion.
"Freedom of speech must prevail in Strathclyde and I trust that you will have the courage to protect and promote this central aspect of university learning."
However, Gary Paterson, the president of USSA, said the students could seek a university-wide referendum to overturn the ban on funding of campaigning by pro-life groups.
Read more: Row over pro-life group's right to funding at Scottish university
He said recently: “I strongly believe in the right of a woman to choose, and I also strongly believe in democracy; the Students’ Union is a democratic members organisation, all of our rules and policy are set by students and can be changed by students; judging by support for this policy and students attitudes on women’s rights I wouldn’t expect such a change would occur.”
The row comes at a time when there are growing concerns that British universities have become too politically correct and are stifling free speech by banning anything that causes offence.
Last year, the University of East Anglia banned students from wearing free sombreros they were given by a local Tex-Mex restaurant because the student union decided non-Mexicans wearing the wide-brimmed hats could be interpreted as racist.
Oxford University cancelled a debate on abortion after female students complained that they would be offended by the presence of men on the panel.
And Cardiff University students tried to ban the feminist icon Germaine Greer because she once wrote that a man who was castrated would not behave like a woman, which was construed as offensive to transsexuals.
John Deighan, chief executive officer at the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children Scotland said: "It is quite remarkable and incredibly sad that in this day and age our universities, which are supposed to be the bastions of free thinking and liberal mindedness, should be transformed into centres for intolerant censorship."
Read more: First US-style anti-abortion protests in Scotland to target Glasgow's new super hospital
Founded in Madrid in 2013 CitizenGO is an internet activism platform that promotes Christian causes and includes petitions opposing same-sex marriage, abortion, and euthanasia.
It has supported a Russian LGBT propaganda law, promoted a Croatian ban on same-sex marriage and a Slovak referendum on banning same-sex marriage, LGBT adoption and limiting sex education.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel