Campus Voices for Palestine – Palestine will not be silenced or erased!

Campus Voices for Palestine will provide a space to discuss threats to campus-based Palestine solidarity.

Date and time: Thursday, 25 Jan 2024 18:00 – 20:30 GMT

Location: Chemistry Lecture Theatre, UCL, Gordon Street, London, UK (20 Gordon Street London WC1H 0AJ)

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Campus Voices for Palestine – Palestine will not be silenced or erased!

Speakers:

  • Michael Mansfield K.C.
  • Dr. Jo Grady (UCU General Secretary)
  • Dr. Kelli Rudolph (Executive Member of CDBU)
  • Ben Jamal (Director PSC)
  • Dr. Husam Zomlot (Head of Palestine Mission, UK)
  • Tom Hickey (BRICUP)
  • Chair: Dr. Saladin Meckled-Garcia (UCL UCU Branch President)

Palestine advocacy is under attack on UK campuses. This is happening despite the rights enshrined in UK law that protect both freedom of political advocacy and scholarly research. The leaderships of UK universities have an obligation in law to protect freedom of speech. Yet this duty is not universally observed.

Today, Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza. Deaths, mostly of civilians—40% of them children—have passed 23,000. Collective punishment aimed at forced explusion is the clear strategy, with schools, hospitals, sanitation, mosques and churches, housing and power generation destroyed. This is not ‘self-defence’ but a second Nakba, with the attempted erasure of a people unfolding before our eyes.

For the leaderships of our main political parties and for the mass media in the UK, these plain truths are unsayable. Some leaderships of our academic communities have also been found wanting. For too many, expressing these truths constitutes grounds for censorship, or for suspension and disciplinary action. Some universities have banned Palestinian events and some have confected grounds to prevent even scholarly discussions about Palestine. Others invoke disciplinary processes against their students and staff in response to malicious complaints that conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

In the face of an unfolding genocide, this silencing of Palestine advocacy needs to be named and challenged. It is the duty of universities to defend academic freedom for their scholars and teachers, and the freedom of expression for those in their campus communities.

Join us for a panel that affirms the legitimacy of addressing the oppression and dispossession of Palestinians, and seeks to defend the right of Palestinians to speak about their experiences, and for a discussion about how to safeguard voices for Palestine on UK campuses.