Content note: This article contains mention of suicide.

A Cambridge student has been seated outside Senate House with a sack over her head and her hands tied since noon today.

She told Varsity she is protesting the effects of the Prevent duty in the University, including personal injustices to her, in a combination of performance art and protest until sunset today.

She said she has “faced contempt and hostility when requesting medical treatment even at [my] most vulnerable.”

She also said she has contemplated suicide “due to fear mongering,” following “exacerbation of psychological conditions due to gaslighting and stress placed by Prevent, unjust accusations and misinterpretation.”

The Prevent duty was rolled out in 2016 as part of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy under the Counter Terrorism and Security Act, and calls for universities to take ‘due regard’ to prevent radicalisation. The duty has been widely criticised nationally as being too open to interpretation, and as potentially endangering freedom of academic expression on university campuses.

A spokesperson for the University commented: “The Prevent duty is law and as such requires all universities to have ‘due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’. It also makes clear that universities must protect freedom of speech and academic freedom in meeting the requirements of the Prevent duty,” and that, “at Cambridge, we have mechanisms in place to ensure that the University implements this duty in a proportionate and coordinated way, with robust checks and balances.”

They added: “If you’re in a mental health or emotional crisis and are worried about your safety, contact the University Counselling Service for help. Suicidal feelings are not unusual, and can pass. With the right support, you can work through it. Please get some help. There are people in your College pastoral team or the University Counselling Service who can support you. If you’re worried about your personal safety, find emergency contacts here.”

The protest is also “a call against the university for the investment in arms deals and a protest against the general injustices on the war on terror”.

Investments in arms companies such as BAE Systems and Boeing by Cambridge colleges have come under recent scrutiny, after a Varsity investigation revealed that five colleges collectively hold over £6.5m in arms manufacturing corporations.

The Prevent duty made national headlines again last week after the University of Reading was found to have warned its third-year politics undergraduates not to access an essay titled ‘Our Morals: The Ethics of Revolution’ by a late academic, Professor Norman Geras, after it was identified as potentially sensitive by an academic convening the course.

Several Cambridge academics spoke to Varsity last week about Reading’s decision. One said it was “depressingly predictable” that leftwing thought was one of the duty’s next targets.

A Varsity investigation in April revealed that the roll-out of the Prevent duty in Cambridge has seen stark inconsistencies across colleges, and has caused some Muslim students to “self-censor” in supervisions. One student, Abdulla Zaman, described his supervisor warning him “not to raise any alarm bells”, after assigning him topics relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In 2016, three colleges took different approaches in processing the same speaker under Prevent – St John’s took a comparatively vigorous approach, calling for all student-facing and welfare staff to undergo Prevent training.

She added that her action sought to “highlight the vulnerability and isolation faced by individual students targeted by [the implementation of Prevent].”

The student said the sack over her head represents “nothingness, facelessness.”

If you have been affected by issues mentioned in this article, you can contact the Samaritans in the UK on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org, and the mental health charity Mind by calling 0300 123 3393 or visit mind.org.uk.

• This article was updated on 19th November to include an additional statement from the University on seeking support while experiencing suicidal feelings.