MEDIA ADVISORY - Israeli Apartheid Week Organisers Intimidated and Harassed

MEDIA ADVISORY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MARCH 13, 2009
CONTACT: 416 890 3703 / media@apartheidweek.org

Israeli Apartheid Week organizers intimidated and harassed.

They demand institutional response.

Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) 2009 is a yearly series of lectures and events taking place on various campuses and communities (now 40 cities) across the world with the intent is of educating people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system. In its fifth year, Toronto's IAW has seen an alarming increase in harassment, intimidation and physical violence against its organizers and guests. While people who seem to be affiliated with the Jewish Defense League (JDL) are the primary organizers of the attacks, unfortunately, the student groups Hasbara and Hillel have also joined in, using cameras, physical proximity, and threatening language to intimidate activists, especially women students, calling them "terrorists" and repeating the accusations of "incitement" and "hate speech". When these incidents of harassment and intimidation are reported to campus police, the police have taken no action.

Prior to the start of IAW, several pro-Israel organizations made false allegations that IAW was a "hate-fest" and, in the name of the safety of Jewish students, they encouraged community members and students to take action to prevent the week from happening. Several Federal MPs, Peter Kent (Conservative), Jason Kenney (Conservative), and Michael Ignatieff (Liberal) have joined in this campaign of false accusation and innuendo, implying falsely that IAW educational events are threatening to the safety of Jewish students on campuses. While Kent, Kenney, and Ignatieff have not attended any IAW events, several high profile university administrators, including Nouman Ashraf, the Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Officer at the University of Toronto, have attended this year. At a meeting with Ashraf, called by organizers to express their concerns over the violence at IAW, they asked him if he had witnessed any hate speech at the events. When he confirmed that he had not, organizers asked him to make a public statement to that effect. Ashraf refused and to date, no members of the senior administration have done so.

IAW organizers demand the freedom to hold public debates and events on campuses without fear or intimidation. We do not want our events to be militarized, or for lecture series and film screenings to take place behind lines of police. Instead, we believe the freedom to hold IAW events could relatively easily be guaranteed by a public statement from University administrations stating that free expression on campuses will be protected and that the University rejects the false claim that IAW events constitute "hate speech".

We therefore demand that York University, the University of Toronto, and Ryerson University all make official statements distancing themselves from the false allegation that IAW is incitement and hate speech. We also demand that these Universities make a public statement that IAW events are protected on grounds of free expression and condemning disruptions and harassment at these events. If Universities refuse to do this, their claims to protect free expression cannot be taken seriously. They will be engaging in a very dangerous game, entertaining false claims and tolerating physical disruptions of university events. It is within their power to de-escalate the situation, and it is their responsibility to do so immediately, rather than encouraging fear and engaging in campaigns of smear, false accusation, and innuendo against their own students. It is past time that Universities stopped looking for ways to prevent discussion from happening and look for ways to make such discussion productive and educational.

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Israeli Apartheid Week
www.apartheidweek.org
media@apartheidweek.org
416 890 3703