Academic freedom under siege

Printed in Western News (University of Western Ontario, London), Thursday, January 8, 2009 - In 2008, President Paul Davenport refused to support a boycott against Israeli universities, citing academic freedom as his justification. Will he now take a stand in support of academic freedom for the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG)?

Already suffering since 2007 from a blockade with effects much more serious than any boycott (acute shortages of books, paper, ink), this largest institution of higher learning in Gaza has now been hit with aerial bombing attacks. At least two major buildings have been destroyed, including one where women attended classes (over 60 per cent of the students at IUG are women).

Just as when they bomb hospitals, mosques and civilian homes, the aggressors justify their bombings with unverifiable claims that the university facilities are somehow bomb-related "research facilities". This hypocritical pretext ignores the fact that Israeli universities (like U.S. and Canadian universities) are centres for large amounts of military research. If we accept this excuse for attacking another university, would we also accept that military research at Western makes our university a 'legitimate target' for bombing?

The destruction of a university is clearly a very serious attack on academic freedom. We call on President Davenport to join us in condemning this assault on the Islamic University of Gaza.

David Heap, French Studies
Ann Bigelow, Management & Organizational Studies
Tim Blackmore, Media & Information Studies
Peter Chidiac, Medicine
Rebecca Coulter, Education
Randa Farah, Anthropology
Mireya Folch-Serra, Geography
Bernd Frohmann, Information and Media Studies
Wael Haddara, Medicine
Bernie Hammond, King's University College
Paul Handford, Biology
Rod Millard, History
Marjorie Ratcliffe, Modern Languages & Literatures
Douglass St. Christian, Anthropology
Nick Dyer-Witheford, Information & Media Studies
Ashraf El Damatty, Engineering
Munir El-Kassem, Dentistry
Hesham El Naggar, Engineering
Mahmoud El-Sakka, Computer Science
Karl Hele, Anthropology
Hanan Lutfiyya, Computer Science
Michael Lynk, Law
Lesley Short, Dentistry