Elham Asaad Buaras
A Muslim student who received death threats after appearing on University Challenge has won “substantial damages” and received a public apology from a Tory Peer who defamed her of anti-Semitism, her lawyers announced on March 6.
Despite being in a team of four, Baroness Jacqueline Foster took to X to single out hijab-wearing student Melika Gorgianeh for having an octopus mascot on the table.
Foster also claimed Gorgianeh was wearing colours representing the Palestinian flag, even though she was donning a navy, orange, pink, and green jacket.
Tagging Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the national communications regulator Ofcom, the BBC, and the University of Oxford in her post, Foster described the octopus as one of the most “disgusting anti-Semitic symbols” and called for the doctoral astrophysics student to be “expelled” by her university and “arrested” by the police.
The row was seized upon on social media and picked up by many media outlets, including Rolling Stone magazine, which ran the story with the headline “Is This Cute Lil’ Guy an Antisemitic Hate Symbol?”
David Atherton, a right-wing pundit, posted on X: “Do you think it is appropriate, Melika Gorgianeh … displayed a blue octopus, a blatant anti-Semitic trope, used by the Nazis to show how Jews’ tentacles were spread around the world?… Shame on Christ Church, shame on Oxford University.”
The episode was filmed in March 2023, months before the conflict in Gaza erupted but it was broadcast on November 20, weeks into Israel’s war on Gaza, at a time when community tensions in Britain were rising.
In late November, Gorgianeh complained to the commissioner of the House of Lords concerning Foster’s conduct, but it was not upheld.
“The false allegation of anti-Semitism has had a profound and deeply damaging impact on my life. I was a student appearing on my favourite TV quiz show. All of a sudden, lies told about me and only me led to me receiving death threats and to my mental health deteriorating,” said Gorgianeh.
“Baroness Foster’s posts, and the posts of others who are yet to be held to account, affected both myself and my family. I felt unsafe to even leave my house. Nobody should ever have to feel how I felt or go through what I went through.
Words have consequences. And now, through her apology, Baroness Fosters’ words begin to have the consequence of healing the very real damage that had been done to me.”
Foster posted a lengthy apology on X on March 6, saying she “made a grave mistake in making those posts, and I should not have done so.”
Commenting on the successful outcome, Gorgianeh said, “Last November, I was falsely accused by a prominent parliamentarian of displaying an antisemitic symbol on University Challenge. I did no such thing, and I am glad that Baroness Foster has now publicly acknowledged that the allegations she made about me were completely false.
Zillur Rahman, Gorgianeh’s solicitor, said that statements by a person in a position of power, authority, and respect, carry “far greater weight and are liable to have a far greater impact than those made by less prominent figures.”
“Baroness Foster holds a DBE, and as a lifetime peer, she is quite literally a member of the ruling class of British society,” he said.
Many people took to social media to celebrate the student’s vindication. ‘Absolutely brilliant to see Melika Gorgianeh, a PhD student at Oxford, get justice after being falsely accused of anti-semitism by a baroness.
The time is over for right-wing smear campaigners to harass and libel innocent people without facing any consequences!’ wrote Lukas Slothuus, a visiting fellow at LSE.
Another user pointed out that the “only team member accused of antisemitism was the obvious Muslim. Islamophobia is rampant among our ruling class.”
