On October 16, students at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) were threatened with academic disciplinary action for handing out ‘Students for Palestine’ leaflets on campus.
The leaflets were promoting a forum taking place on Thursday 24 October. The forum was organised by the UTS Students for Palestine club, aiming to raise awareness of the information found through a Government Information Public Access (GIPA) request into UTS connections to corporations that manufacture weapons, military hardware and military software.
Head of Campus Security, Shaun O’Mara, informed students that these instructions were proposed directly from UTS Vice-Chancellor, Andrew Parfitt. Parfitt deemed the leaflets as a threat to student safety, due to the use of the word ‘genocide’.
This is following the recent incident at Western Sydney University where two students were arrested at a pro-Palestine protest.
In a statement to Honi Soit, UTS Students for Palestine convenor, Yasmine Johnson, said that “we were informed by campus security that the word ‘genocide’ constitutes hate speech, and our leaflets constitute a risk to the safety of the university community. But genocide is a term of international law. This is clearly an attempt by UTS to censor support for Palestine.”
“The university is weaponizing ‘student safety’ to wage a dangerous assault on freedom of speech. But we should not be obligated to protect the feelings of the Vice Chancellor, who would prefer nobody talks about UTS ties to the genocide.”
One of the Forum Organisers and postgraduate student, Lily Campbell, says,
“After a year of genocide in Gaza, Israel’s war on the middle east is only growing more deadly. Just yesterday, at least fifty people were killed in Israeli attacks on Northern Gaza. Students have a long history of standing up for justice. We have to defend our right to speak out and organise against the complicity of Australian institutions in these horrific crimes.”
On October 17, UTS management have removed the ban and permitted the flyers to be handed out, with the conditions that the word ‘genocide’ is taken out or censored.
The forum on Thursday 24 October is still going ahead at 1pm at UTS Building 10, Level 3, Room 480.
For more updates, see Students for Palestine UTS instagram page: @studentsforpalestineuts
