In May this year, Bahar Mustafa, then diversity officer at Goldsmiths, University of London, posted a Facebook message requesting that men and white people not attend a BME Women and non-binary event. There was an immediate backlash from those also enraged by the fact that Mustafa allegedly used the hashtag #KillAllWhiteMen on social media.
Today, Mustafa received a court summons from the Metropolitan Police to answer two charges, both of which come under the Communications Act 2003. The first is for sending a “letter/communication/article conveying a threatening message”; the second for “sending by public communication network an offensive/ indecent/ obsecene/ menacing message/ matter”.
It isn’t clear what communciation either charge relates to – one seems to refer to something sent in private, while the use of “public communication network” in the second implies that it took place on social media. The Met’s press release states that both communciations took place between 10 November 2014 and 31 May 2015, a very broad timescale considering the uproar around Mustafa’s social media posts took place in May.
We approached the Met to ask which communications the summons refers to, but a spokesperson said that no more information could be released at this time. Mustafa will appear at Bromley Magistrates’ Court on 5 November.
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