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{mosimage}We would have liked to welcome you to a new school year with our re-newed promise to continue advocating for Palestinian human rights and social justice, and to work and speak out against all forms of racism and discrimination, on UWO's campus. Instead, we must begin the school year by informing our members that on Sept 2, 2006, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights - UWO was deratified by the University Students’ Council. Although shrouded in the appearance of legitimacy, USC's deratification of SPHR is nothing more than an ongoing attempt to stifle and silence discussion and education regarding Palestinian human rights violations on UWO's campus. Despite this ruling, SPHR once gain opens the school year with the commitment and invitation to you, to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for basic human rights in the face of continuing human rights violations.
{mosimage}8 September, 2006 Dear SPHR Members, We would have liked to welcome you to a new school year with our re-newed promise to continue advocating for Palestinian human rights and social justice, and to work and speak out against all forms of racism and discrimination, on UWO's campus. Instead, we must begin the school year by informing our members that on Sept 2, 2006, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights - UWO was deratified by the University Students’ Council. Although shrouded in the appearance of legitimacy,
USC's deratification of SPHR is nothing more than an ongoing attempt to stifle and silence discussion and education regarding Palestinian human rights violations on UWO's campus. Despite this ruling, SPHR once gain opens the school year with the commitment and invitation to you, to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for basic human rights in the face of continuing human rights violations.
{mosimage} As you may have read on the front page of the Gazette on Thursday, September 7 2006, the Clubs Policy Committee made the decision to de-ratify SPHR last Tuesday, after failing to grant SPHR reasonable access to two complaints made against it, and without providing SPHR with sufficient time to prepare a defense. SPHR was informed of two complaints issued against it in April, 2006, and was asked to defend itself without access to the complaints under an equally unfair deadline; some days after the end of the exam period. The first complaint was regarding SPHR's involvement in the anti-hate vigil, an event in which SPHR participated to denounce hate in all its forms. SPHR's participation followed an express invitation by the USC to participate in this USC-hosted event in the UCC atrium.
The second complaint was launched against SPHR due to an e-mail sent to USC councillors opposing the election of Noah Farber as VP-Finance. The USC did not allow SPHR to view the complaints against it without a so-called "Confidentiality Agreement", an agreement which the USC claimed only protected the identities of the parties who made the complaint. However, signing the agreement would have prevented SPHR from using any part of the complaints against the USC, or to question, object to, or hold responsible the USC for its handling of this issue. The ombudsperson was contacted by SPHR to seek for mediation and filed
a report recommending that the USC "discuss the issue of timelines for SPHR to submit a response to the USC for the complaints made against them." Instead of the USC working to resolve the matter fairly, the CPC went on to discuss and decide on this matter in the dark, before the school year began and without due scrutiny by SPHR’s members and the student body. This was yet another tactic by the USC to limit SPHR's ability to defend itself fully against the complaints. SPHR proposed several reasonable avenues to resolve this matter, including involving a neutral third party such as the Ombudsperson to act as a mediator. However, these gestures were ignored by the USC and CPC, and the USC once again proved its lack of willingness to act in the spirit of fairness and justice towards SPHR. The University of Western Ontario, like any typical North American campus, is a place where activism on Israel/Palestine should be an expected feature. However, for the University Students' Council and its anti-human rights cadre, suppressing such activism seems to be a priority. Palestinians living in the illegally Occupied Palestinian
Territories, and the supporters of human rights all over the world, have seen this all before: silencing the oppressed and those who stand in solidarity with them is nothing new. The suppression of freedom of expression is a common tactic that was used against activists in the struggles for human rights in Apartheid South Africa. The attempt by the USC is no less futile and misguided, and is being used to avoid discussion of important issues by labelling them as "controversial" and as a source of "discomfort" for those students on our campus who are obviously uncomfortable with the concept of universal human rights. According to Noam Chomsky, "these reports from the University of Western Ontario are particularly worrying in light of the ongoing, utterly fraudulent, campaigns in the US by organizations that describe themselves as 'supporters of Israel' to silence academics and students who support the human rights of the Palestinian people". When Chomsky, the famous writer, heard what SPHR has been up against in the past few months, he wrote a letter of support and sent it to the USC and Paul
Davenport, the president of UWO. Chomsky states, "I would like to join those who are concerned with the situation, which appears to be the
silencing of a club that supports the human rights of the Palestinian people and protests actions that are in violation of international law". SPHR is now in the process of appealing the USC's decision. However, we cannot win this without your help. You can help SPHR fight this decision by writing letters to the USC and UWO President. You can contact
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- T: 519.661.3574 , Fab Dolan, USC president -
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- T: P: 519.661.3574 , UWO President,
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- T: (519) 661-3106, and the Gazette
expressing your disgust with their attempt to silence free speech and shut down an indispensable club working to educate the public on Palestinian human rights. You can also sign our online petition by visiting our website at http://sphr-uwo.2y.net. Feel free to update yourself on the tainted past of the USC by viewing the archives of all the publicly available communications and complaints. People can also join SPHR UWO at that site to receive our emails and communications and to participate in the club. Let us together turn this attempt to silence us into an opportunity for
discussion and education. Despite the attempt to silence SPHR on campus, SPHR will again be sponsoring London's 3rd Annual Palestinian Film Festival in conjunction with the CPA and Sabeel. The Palestinian Film Festival, featuring films by Palestinians and others speaking out against the Occupation, will be held during the evenings of September 14, 15 and 16 at the Arts Project, 203 Dundas Street between Richmond and Clarence
Streets at 7:00pm each day. Admission is by donation. For more
information, visit http://freedom.2y.net/wiki/Palestinian_film_festival or call (519) 642-2767. In solidarity, SPHR-UWO Exec |
