Queen Mary moving Palestine talk to smaller venue ‘weak-willed’

A London university’s decision to cancel 100 tickets to a pro-Palestinian lecture has been criticised as “extremely disturbing” and “weak-willed”.

Francesca Albanese, United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was due to speak on the afternoon of 12 November at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) on “the ‘genocide in Gaza’ and international law”.

However, in an email seen by Times Higher Education, QMUL management blamed “unforeseen circumstances” for moving Ms Albanese’s lecture to a smaller venue. It is understood that about 100 tickets were cancelled as a result.

Ms Albanese has already spoken at the University of Greenwich, SOAS University of London and the London School of Economics in recent days.

Protestors, led by the Campaign Against Antisemitism, have demonstrated against Ms Albanese, who is also an affiliate scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, for her views and urged universities to “#BanFran”.

At LSE, images on social media show police attempting to keep the peace between pro-Palestinian protestors and those holding banners denying that a genocide is taking place in Gaza.

“This just seems to me to be another attempt to stifle those of us at Queen Mary who are opposed to Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians,” Penny Green, professor of law and globalisation at QMUL told THE.

She accused the institution of using a securitisation argument for restricting access to the lecture, which she warned was “extremely disturbing”.

“I understand some degree of security required, but this is very, very heavy-handed,” added Professor Green, who is also head of the law department.

“It seems to me that this whole securitisation argument is to deflect attention away from management’s persistent attempt to silence pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, anti-genocide voices.”

The event had been moved to a larger venue before then being moved back to the original, smaller space. 

Claiming that pro-Palestinian support at the institution was being “silenced in favour of a very tiny minority of Zionist voices”, Professor Green said students and staff were “angry” and “despairing” towards university management.

“This is the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories…if the university isn’t going to make a space for those UN voices then that’s extremely disturbing from my point of view.”

Those whose tickets have not been cancelled were told to bring photo identification and to expect increased levels of security. The British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (Brismes) recently warned that health and safety regulations were being increasingly misused to restrict academic freedom.

Gargi Bhattacharyya, a professor at another London university, told THE that Ms Albanese’s work has made her a “target” for those wishing to defend Israel.

“Those people are agitating in such a way and threatening disruption in a way that is making universities and other organisations very anxious,” she said, claiming that the “weak-willed” QMUL had overreacted and caved in to external pressures – which is not the role of the university.

“There’s been a long history of UK universities succumbing to pressure to not platform pro-Palestinian voices.

“I think in the light of the events of the last months, I don’t think it was ever acceptable, but I think it's bordering on criminal at this point in this genocide for QMUL to do that.”

A QMUL spokesperson said: “Queen Mary, like all universities, has a duty to uphold freedom of speech within the law and we have in place a clear code of practice on free speech to allow us to meet this duty.

“All events are conducted in accordance with our code of practice, which all staff, students and visitors must follow.

“It was therefore right that we hosted this event with UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, which took place in line with our code of practice on free speech and in the original venue secured by our School of Law, [which] hosted the event.”

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com