Radical NUS President Malia Bouattia, who said that the police should be abolished because it’s a “myth that they are here to protect us”, has relied on officers for protection at least twice, Heat Street can reveal.
Bouattia, who rallies daily against “racist” officers of the law appeared on a four-person panel in 2015 discussing the police.
It was recorded by online channel Consented TV .
During the discussion she claimed good deeds by the police are not enough to support their existence “when the foundations, why they exist, are essentially corrupt”, she opined, adding “they are inhumane.”
Bouattia, at the time the NUS Black Students’ officer, also said: “There is the myth that they are here to protect us but in reality it’s to protect the state, to maintain the status quo.
“We need to understand their function is not to serve the people and to protect us, but rather to control us for the benefits of a capitalist system, to police anyone non-white and to suppress the poor.”
Despite making these incoherent yet inflammatory remarks, Heat Street has noticed that she and her family have been happy to alert the police to problems in her life and rely on them for protection on at least two occasions.
In an article for the Guardian published earlier this year she wrote: “Over the last two years I have received untold vitriol online – rape and death threats in abundance. I had to involve the police for my parents’ protection.”
The second time she used the police for protection came after blocking an NUS motion condemning ISIS for its atrocities in the Middle East.
In a recent interview with the Guardian, it was said that the controversy led to a “deluge of death threats” that “necessitated police protection.”
It remains unclear whether Bouattia sees the police as a corrupt inhumane racist force in society only when they aren’t protecting her and her family, but her willingness to seek their help is certainly at odds with what she said in 2015.
Heat Street has put a series of detailed questions to Bouattia via the offices of the NUS seeking clarification on whether she criticised the police as “racist” before or after using them for her and her family’s protection.
Almost 24 hours later, our questions remain unanswered.