As Situating Palestine collective we have been organizing public seminars to offer information, insights, and analytical tools, and provide an opportunity for questions, to help make sense of unfolding events in Gaza since November 2023. In doing so, we have established explicit collective rules, communicated via our poster announcements, which state that we do not tolerate antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or any form of intimidation, harassment, and violence during our seminars. We also communicate this orally at the start of each lecture, where we furthermore stipulate that we do not allow lectures to be recorded. This is to ensure that speakers and audience feel free to engage and exchange.
During our seminar on Monday 26 May on ‘Repression, Removing Fear, and the Struggle to End the Zionist Project’ by Dr. Harry Pettit, however, one of the attendants did secretly record the session. This was without our permission and against the explicit instructions given at the start of the lecture. It also breaches the rules of the university and violates national privacy laws.
This violation is all the more concerning because the attendant then shared the recorded material with journalists who have subsequently published it. As a result, our speakers were slandered and put at unacceptable risk, facing subsequent harassment and hate speech.
As Situating Palestine collective we are horrified that we have not been able to safeguard our speakers from this abuse despite our active policy to prevent such situations and facilitate open exchange on sensitive but extremely important topics. Considering that these violations do not merely break the rules of our collective, but also those of the university and our government, we ask the University Board to take proper action to address this violation and help us uphold our ability as university staff to maintain the academic freedom and socially safe environment to discuss fundamental societal developments.