Palestine Speech Suppression – a statement
The letter below was drawn up in response to pervasive repression of speech and scholarship on Palestine.
It was triggered by learning that the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law had rescinded an employment offer to noted international human rights scholar Dr Valentina Azarova, following a complaint by a sitting judge regarding her research on Israel’s occupation policies.
It is still open for signing by lawyers and academics (both inside and outside Canada).
We are being taken to a very dark place by very dark forces – the plight of Julian Assange being just one example – and it really is time for everyone to stand up and make it crystal clear that we are NOT going to let them take us there. The following is from Craig Murray’s report on the 16th day of Julian’s hearing at the Old Bailey:
Even my blog has never been so systematically subject to shadowbanning from Twitter and Facebook as now. Normally about 50% of my blog readers arrive from Twitter and 40% from Facebook. During the trial it has been 3% from Twitter and 9% from Facebook. That is a fall from 90% to 12%. In the February hearings Facebook and Twitter were between them sending me over 200,000 readers a day. Now they are between them sending me 3,000 readers a day…..
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-16/
And here’s another excellent piece from Jonathan Cook:
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-09-22/guardian-silent-assange-trial/