[Fdu] Fw: Censorship again, this time at Paris 8

Peter Fitting p.fitting at utoronto.ca
Mon Feb 20 12:31:18 EST 2012



Dear colleagues,

      Last year at about this time some of you signed a petition to the director of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in response to her cancellation of a meeting planned by the Collectif Palestine ENS.  I am now writing to inform you that the administration of the Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint Denis has withdrawn permission to host a full-day meeting planned by the Collectif Palestine Paris 8.  The Collectif has issued the following statement:

Statement regarding conference on Israeli apartheid at Paris 8

We learn with consternation that the President of the University Paris 8 has
decided to retract the authorization that had been previously granted for a
conference entitled "Israel, a state of apartheid?" This initiative, to be held on the
27th and 28th February, intended to bring together specialists from France, Italy,
the United Kingdom and Belgium in order to have a rational discussion about the
aforementioned subject matter.

Using the pretext of possible "trouble to public order", the President of Paris 8 has
retracted permission for the conference, despite there having been detailed
knowledge of the program, the speakers and a budget allocated by the
management of the university for the event.

What is clear is that the intolerable pressure exerted by the
Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) has led the
President of Paris 8 to retract its permission for the event. In a recently published statement, the CRIF
denounced the conference, waving the threat of possible disturbance to "public
order".

Is it no longer possible to exercise freedom of speech in French universities in
relation to the field of the politics of Israel and Palestine? According to the CRIF and its followers,
the response is no. This buckling in the face of pressure from the CRIF is not unusual. Last
year it succeeded in shutting down a forum for discussion, which resulted in the
cancellation of a conference at the Ecole Normal Supérieur (ENS).

The cancellation of the upcoming conference and last year's at the ENS is a clear
demonstration of how the management of a public academic institution will
yield to the injunctions and threats from a corpus that presents itself as the voice
of the entire Jewish community in France but is in reality a mouthpiece for the
Israeli embassy.

We ask the President of Paris 8 to reverese this decision and permit the
conference to take place. Freedom of expression and academic liberties are far
too precious to be smothered by intimidation campaigns.
  
A letter protesting this decision, signed by 300 academics, has been posted at

http://blogs.mediapart.fr/edition/les-invites-de-mediapart/article/190212/lettre-des-100-contre-l-interdiction-du-colloqu

and has been delivered to the Paris 8 administration.  You are invited to support
this statement by writing to "Zakaria Arrassi" <zarrassi at gmail.com>, with a copy
to this address (academicfreedom.ens at gmail.com).

Best wishes,
Michael Harris




P.S.  The letter written by the administration of Paris 8 explaining their decision
to withdraw his authorization for the meeting is translated below.  




  Saint-Denis, February 17, 2012
  Statement by the administration of the Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis

  The Université Paris 8 was recently asked to authorize the organization on campus of a conference
  entitled "New sociological, historical, and juridical approaches to calls for an international boycott:  Israel,
  an apartheid state?", planned for February 27 and 28.

  The president of the university initially gave his approval to the organizers, on the condition that
  a certain number of conditions were respected:   an absolute respect for the
  university's principles of neutrality and "laïcité", on the one hand, and the removal of any logos and
  visual symbols of the university Paris 8, on the other, given that the meeting was not planned
  at the initiative of the university. 

  As with any request to organize a public meeting,  the president of the university, in authorizing
  this meeting, took into account the rights of members of the university community to freedom of expression 
  and assembly, the need to maintain order on campus, the intellectual and scientific independence of
  the university, and the principle of neutrality of public service, all in the interest of the expression of
  a plurality of opinions.

  Today, however, it seems that these conditions have not been respected adequately in order to guarantee
  the maintenance of order on campus, nor the intellectual and scientific independence of
  the university, where the pluralism of scientific approaches and critical and multifaceted analysis 
  must be seen as fundamental academic obligations.  

  More precisely, the representation of this "conference" as "academic," in addition to the repeated
  references to "Paris 8" on the written and electronic materials related to this meeting, may 
  in and of themselves lead to misunderstandings incompatible with the requirement that
  the university be independent from any political or ideological influence.  The reactions
  to the plans for this meeting, insofar as they call into question the university's role, show that a degree of 
  confusion is already present and that there is a real risk to the respect to the principle of neutrality
  of the public service of higher education and research.

  The theme of this conference, the nature of the planned lectures, and their highly polemical titles, have
  led to strong reactions that indicate a serious risk of public disorder and of counter-demonstrations;
  the university must take all necessary measures to avoid this risk.

  Under these circumstances, the president of the university has decided to withdraw the approval previously
  granted.  The office of the presidency has contacted the organizers, proposing that space within the university
  be provided at some future date for the organization of a day devoted to studying the questions, including
  a public and multi-sided debate, in which a plurality of opinions will be presented.

  Finally, as regards the organization of the conference on February 27 and 28, the president will place the
  services of the university at the disposal of the organizers in order to identify other locations,
  outside the campus of the Université Paris 8, appropriate for hosting this conference.

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