CAMPAIN’s Defence of Dr Swee Ang
- Adam Waterhouse
- Aug 8
- 4 min read
This article provides a summary and update of our efforts to defend Dr Swee Ang over the past sixteen months. We apologise for the rather delayed nature of this update, but it has taken far longer than expected to get to a point where we felt ready to report back.
In early April 2025 the British Medical Association (BMA) decided it would disinvite Dr Swee Ang from doing a keynote lecture at their Medical Students Conference, due to take place on Friday 4th April 2025. The reason for the disinvitation was an item that appeared on Swee's Wikipedia page which referenced a 2014 article in the Telegraph reporting that she had forwarded a link to a video by the US white supremacist David Duke to a closed email group which claimed that “Zionist Jews” were in control of the United States government, banks and media.
What the Wikipedia entry did not say, however, was that Swee had not known who Duke was at the time, was grateful to be informed of Duke’s extremist right-wing views, and apologised for sharing the video. Under normal circumstances no one would attribute any great significance to this as it was purely a private affair, but, predictably, once news of it was leaked, it was eagerly seized upon by people wanting to smear Swee and discredit the Palestinian cause more broadly.
In response to this disinvitation a demonstration in support of Swee was held outside of the BMA headquarters on Saturday 5th April 2025. She gave the speech she had intended to give to student doctors the previous day, and a short excerpt can be viewed immediately below.
CAMPAIN supported this demonstration, and subsequently informed Swee that we would like to take up her case with the BMA in order to challenge this decision, and the misrepresentation of her that had led them to believe it to be justified or necessary.
On 12th April 2025, CAMPAIN sent an open letter to the BMA Chair, Professor Philip Banfield, setting out the facts of the case and calling upon the BMA to recognise the politically motivated nature of the accusations against her. We asked the BMA to support her in accordance with their commitment, as a trade union, to protecting their members [which include Swee] from unfair and disproportionate treatment. The letter received 3,600 signatures, including many distinguished names. We received a reply from Greg Beales, the BMA's Director of Policy and Communications, with the offer of a meeting.
On 2nd October 2025, Swee, together with CAMPAIN Secretary Jonathan Coulter and CAMPAIN Chair Adam Waterhouse, went to the BMA and met with Greg Beales and his colleague. Mr Beales was friendly and disarming, and made the point that no decision had been made by the BMA to deplatform Swee, as such, and that the decision to disinvite her was made by a temporary committee organising the 2025 conference that had now been disbanded.
Mr Beales repeatedly emphasised the importance of responding to mistakes that are being used as the basis of smears by making sure that there is an apology on the public record. Unfortunately, there was nothing online that said that Swee had apologised for this incident. He explained that as far as the committee was concerned, they would need to be able to defend any decision to invite her in the public sphere, and knowing privately that she had apologised was not enough as they needed something that was online and citable.
After a fruitless search for a journalist who would be willing to interview Swee and write an article about this, we realised that we would need to take on the role ourselves. CAMPAIN committee members David Mond and Sharen Green interviewed Swee, and David then wrote a comprehensive article setting out the details of what had happened and putting them in context. This was published by Middle East Monitor on 28th May 2026.
The article lays out the chain of events that make clear to any objective observer that the accusations made against Swee are essentially opportunistic and politically motivated. Having published the Middle East Monitor article we could then go ahead and update Swee's Wikipedia entry. Wikipedia requires references for claims that are made on its pages, and this had been the obstacle all along.
On 28th July 2026 we wrote to Greg Beales drawing his attention to the Middle East Monitor article and to Swee's updated Wikipedia entry. We asked Mr Beales to share this information with relevant BMA people and with members of the 2025 conference committee that had made the original decision. We made the point that, given what had now been done, there was no just cause for disinviting Swee from speaking at any BMA event, particularly meetings with students who are keen to learn from her experience. We are currently awaiting a response.
Whilst we do not wish to “blow our own trumpet”, it is worth noting that no other pro-Palestine organisation was able or willing to take on this task. This is not a criticism of any of these organisations, all of which do extremely important work; but does point to the need for a dedicated organisation for addressing misrepresentation and the fact that, in spite of our small size, we are taking on important issues such as this that would otherwise remain unaddressed.
If you would like to support our work, please go to CAMPAIN's home page, and scroll down to where it says "Actions you can take".
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