Indian-origin student challenges British varsities' guidance

An Indian-origin student has challenged a guidance issued by British universities which advocates gender segregation at meetings of Muslim people on campus.

Radha Bhatt, 19, a Cambridge University student, has demanded in a legal letter that Universities UK (UUK), which represents vice-chancellors of universities in Britain, admit that the guidance on segregation it published last November was "unlawful", The Sunday Times reported Sunday.

UUK's guidance cited a case study to justify its policy of allowing the "voluntary" separation of men and women for religious purposes, the report said.

UUK was forced to withdraw the case study last month and to review its guidance after British Prime Minister David Cameron said he wanted to ban segregation at universities. Human rights campaigners accused UUK of promoting "sexual apartheid".

Bhatt, a first-year history student at the university, is not Muslim but she says she considers the guidance a threat to women of all backgrounds.