Committee on Academic Freedom Letters

Following are the contents of letters the Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) has sent to heads of state or government officials in the past months. CAF letters are also printed in the MESA Newsletter. Click on date to access the letter.

The Committee for Academic Freedom encourages all MESA members and others to help keep it informed of human rights violations affecting academics in the Middle East and North Africa. If you learn of human rights violations, please contact a member of the CAF or the MESA Secretariat, supplying as much information as possible.

1 May 2008

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
3 Kaplan St., Qiryat Ben-Gurion
PO Box 187
91919 Jerusalem
Israel

via fax: 972-2-6512631

Dear Prime Minister Olmert:

I write to you on behalf of the Middle East Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) to express our concern about the continued restriction of movement and travel imposed by the government of Israel on Palestinian students from Gaza. Though a shuttle service for transporting the students via the Erez Crossing and then on to Egypt or Jordan, for exit to third countries, was put into effect in late 2007 it proved to be no more than an ad hoc arrangement that facilitated the passage of fewer than half of the 730 students who need to reach universities abroad. While waiting for the shuttle service to begin or for subsequent shuttles to operate, many of the students in Gaza missed the start of the academic year at universities around the world. Some lost their places for the entire year, as well as their scholarships, because they did not arrive at their campuses in time. It is impossible to estimate how many students, faced with the intensifying closure policy, lost hope and gave up altogether on trying to pursue their studies abroad.

MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2700 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

On October 19, 2007, we addressed you about this matter and now wish to reiterate our expectation that the government of Israel will establish a reliable policy that will allow Palestinian students so wishing to pursue their academic studies abroad.

In particular, we wish to bring to your attention the cases of ten Palestinian students who have been prevented from leaving Gaza to pursue their academic studies in the U.S. Belgium, U.K., Germany, and Jordan:

1.   Mariam Ashour, 18 years old, received a scholarship from the Hope Fund to study business administration at Columbia College in South Carolina.

2.   Yahia Abu Hashem, 18 years old, received a scholarship from the Hope Fund to study computer information technology at Roanoke College in Virginia.

3.   Wajdi Halabi has been accepted to complete a PhD in computer science at Vrije University in Brussels, supported by the European fellowship program Erasmus Mundus.

4.   Wissam Abuajwa has been admitted to an MA program in environmental studies at a British university.

5.   Nibal Nayef is the recipient of a scholarship from the German scholarship program DAAD to study at the Technical University in Kaiserslautern, Germany for a PhD in computer science.

6.   Basheer Obaid is the recipient of a scholarship from the German DAAD program to study at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany for a PhD in infrastructure engineering.

7.   Ahmed al Hayak has been accepted to a Master’s program at the Herder-Institute of Leipzig University in Germany, and is a recipient of a scholarship of the German DAAD program.

8.   Fatma Shbair is a recipient of a scholarship from the German DAAD program for a Master’s degree in computer science at the New York Institute of Technology in Amman, Jordan.

9.   Samah Hamouda is a recipient of a scholarship from the German DAAD program for a Master’s degree in industrial engineering at the University of Jordan in Amman.

10. Ahmed Ghorab is a recipient of a scholarship from the German DAAD program for a Master’s degree in computer engineering at the University of Applied Sciences in Amman, Jordan.

Israel has the responsibility to ensure the Right to Education as enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which it ratified in 1991. The ongoing disruption of Palestinian education constitutes a violation of a basic human right that will have long-term and negative political, economic, and humanitarian consequences for all peoples involved.  We call on the Israeli government to create a reliable policy that will allow the ten students mentioned above as well as the hundreds of other registered Gaza university students to travel to their educational institutions abroad.

Sincerely,
Mervat Hatem
MESA President

cc:   Minister of Defense Ehud Barak 

April 1, 2008

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran
c/o H.E. Javad Zarif
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations

Fax : 212-867-7086 ;  +98 251 7774 2228
info@leader.ir; istiftaa@wilayah.org

Your Excellency:

I am writing on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America to protest the 9 March 2008 attack by special forces police against a lawful meeting of a student-organized seminar at Shiraz University, as well as the ongoing harassment of students by university officials.

The Middle East Studies Association of North American (MESA) was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 27 00 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

The seminar at Shiraz University was sponsored by the Islamic Students Association, which applied for and received a permit to hold the event.  Speakers from outside were invited.  According to eyewitness reports, special forces police took over the seminar hall.  Some blocked the speakers and would-be attendees from entering while others beat the student organizers.  Six students were arrested and, when two other students inquired about their status, they also were arrested.  Seven other students were detained at demonstrations before and after this event. 

The police attack on the seminar appears to be an attempt to crush student protests at Shiraz University more generally.  Actions by local law enforcement agents occurred in tandem with similar university actions.  Students have demonstrated in favor of hiring qualified faculty, holding new elections for the Student Council, and improving living conditions in women’s dormitories.  Prior to the seminar’s disruption, university officials had engaged in months of harassment of students that included interference in student elections:  in December 2007, university administrators disqualified 108 students running for election to the Student Council.  Student demonstrators were roughly treated by university security guards and, according to an eyewitness, at least one female demonstrator was beaten.  Witnesses also reported harassment of students’ families by intelligence officials.  The editors of four student publications were prosecuted in the local court for printing "propaganda against the system."  The students responded to these repressive measures with a series of sit-ins and with calls for the resignation of the university chancellor, Mohammad Hadi Sadeghi.   According to our information, as many as 3000 students participated at various times in the sit-ins, which also were supported by members of the university faculty and staff, and which were due to culminate the day after the seminar was attacked. 

Although all the students who were detained are reported to be free on bail, most say they were beaten during their incarceration; and seminar organizers report having been kept in solitary confinement.  After the campus was closed for the Norouz holiday, we learned that the university’s disciplinary committee suspended ten of them for up to two semesters.  Four were punished for having participated in demonstrations in December, and the other six for their participation in the sit-ins. 

Assaults on student assemblies and the disruption of lawful university events by university and police officials constitute a severe abuse of academic freedom.  We ask that you investigate the repression of, and violence committed against, students at Shiraz University by the leaders of their institution and by the local officials who have cooperated with university administrators in beating, incarcerating, and judicially pursuing students for exercising their rights of free speech and lawful assembly.  We also urge you to support our request that the university administration respond to students’ reasonable demands that their elections be permitted to go on without interference and that their living and learning conditions be brought up to acceptable standards .  We look forward to hearing from you with regard to the actions you take in this regard.

Sincerely,
Mervat Hatem
MESA President

March 10, 2008
Ismail Haniya, Prime Minister
Caretaker Government of the Palestinian Authority
Fax:  202-974-6278

Dear Prime Minister:
 
We are writing to urge you to use your authority to halt the activities of armed groups that have been engaged in indiscriminate rocket fire against Israeli towns bordering Gaza.  We are particularly distressed at the 27 February 2008 bombardment of Sderot, during which around 50 rockets hit the western Negev, with one of them slamming into Sapir College near Sderot and killing Roni Yechiah, a 47-year-old student. According to press reports, your own organization Hamas claimed responsibility for that attack.  What we are asking is that you hold this group accountable for its actions and that you make clear to all that such behavior is criminal and will be prosecuted.
 
The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2700 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

Rockets fired from Gaza have been falling on Israel for some seven years. According to Human Rights Watch, Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza and Israeli artillery attacks on populated areas in northern Gaza have been responsible for "hundreds of civilian casualties since September 2005 and constitute serious violations of the laws of war."  To endanger the lives of civilians, including students, is not an acceptable response no matter how severe the provocation. 

In the past we have on numerous occasions conveyed to the Israeli government our concerns regarding Israeli attacks on Palestinian students, teachers and educational facilities as well as regarding the deleterious effects of the continuing occupation. Most recently, on 6 June 2007 we wrote to express our grave concern about the impact on Palestinian educational institutions of Israel’s military bombing campaigns and incursions in the Palestinian territories, the abduction of Minister of Education Dr.Nasser Eddin Shaer (who was subsequently released), as well as the crippling impact of international sanctions against the Hamas-led government. 

As the leader of the Palestinian government in effective control of the Gaza strip, we ask that you exercise your authority and that of the government of Gaza to halt attacks that put civilians and civilian institutions, including students and universities, at risk. 

Sincerely,
Mervat Hatem
MESA President

March 7, 2008
Dr. Ze’ev Tsahor, President
Sapir Academic College
D.N. Hof Ashkelon 79165
Sderot, Israel

Dear President Tsahor,

I am writing on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) regarding the case of Nizar Hassan, a well-known filmmaker and professor at Sapir College, who, we understand, is to be dismissed from his post for comments he made on 8 November 2007 to an army reserve student who had come to class in uniform and carrying a weapon.  
 
The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2700 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

According to reports in Ha-Aretz, Sapir College has no formal set of disciplinary regulations nor a charter concerning the behavior of students and teachers. Yet, in the absence of such regulations, a disciplinary procedure was launched against Prof. Hassan; moreover, he was suspended from his teaching duties even before the procedure was concluded. Apparently, three days after the first media reports, the Sapir College administration convened its internal academic council, which decided that “measures” had to be taken. This resulted in the establishment, for the first time in the College’s history, of a committee to look into such a case.
 
Again, according to press reports, the council did not invite Prof. Hassan to the committee’s meeting. Instead actions were taken on the basis of a report you submitted grounded in your conclusions regarding the incident. According to Ha-Aretz, you have contended that the committee acted on the basis of the decision of the internal academic council and according to what you have characterized as “the academic ethos” --that politics stops at the classroom door -- an ethos you claim Prof. Hassan has violated.

Our committee does not seek to pass judgment on either the question of military attire in the classroom, or on what constitutes the politicization of the classroom. We are very concerned, however, that Sapir College does not have established procedures for investigating charges against faculty, and hence that the process initiated against Prof. Hassan has been ad hoc. Indeed, Prof. Faingulernt, who is department chair, has claimed that if both he and Prof. Hassan had been in Israel at the time the controversy arose, matters would have been worked out differently, and that Sapir College has seen worse cases in the past. This statement, in conjunction with your own explanations of how events have unfolded, strongly suggests that the process by which Prof. Hassan’s case has been investigated and considered has been highly irregular.

A key base of academic freedom is a system of regulations and procedures whereby grievances can be investigated and adjudicated openly and fairly. We, therefore, call upon you to review the case of Prof. Hassan in this light, to ensure that his case is dealt with in the same way as other cases of complaints against faculty have been.
 
Sincerely,
Mervat Hatem
MESA President

27 February 2008
Mr. Isma’il Haniyeh, Caretaker Prime Minister, Gaza
Dr. Ahmed Youssef, Advisor to the Caretaker Government for Foreign Policy
Ambassador Afif Safieh, Representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization
               
Fax:  202-974-6278

Gentlemen,

I write on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) regarding the deplorable burning of the YMCA library in Gaza City and the attack on the Al-Nur Baptist School in Gaza City, both incidents having occurred in the last two weeks.  Last Spring – 22 May, 2007, to be exact – we also wrote to express our concern about similar kinds of brutal attacks on schools, libraries, and other educational facilities in Gaza.  As then, so now, we would like to remind you that our organization has frequently protested to the government of Israel about its policies that restrict access to education in Palestine and that we are aware of the dreadful economic and security situation in Gaza fostered by Israeli actions and US compliance.  We also wish to emphasize that we are equally aware of the responsibility all of you have to protect such educational institutions from these kinds of attacks.  We therefore urge you as strongly as possible to work incessantly to prevent such attacks in the future.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2700 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

We are concerned that greater precautions were not taken to protect either the YMCA building and its contents or the Baptist school.  Those of us familiar with Gaza and the YMCA Library are acutely aware of the important role it plays in providing a place where people, young and old, can come together to study and talk.  This is precisely the kind of neutral meeting ground that needs the protection only your organizations can provide.  We wish to encourage you to restore the YMCA library to its former state, and we fervently hope that there will be no future incidents of this kind in Gaza.

We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
Mervat Hatem
MESA President

Your Excellency,

I write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) to protest in the strongest possible terms the recent wave of arrests of students at universities across Iran following demonstrations held on December 7, 2007 demanding greater academic freedom at Iranian universities. The names of some of the known detained students are listed below. All are members of the student group Office for Strengthening Unity (Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat) and Students for Freedom and Equality (Daneshjuyan-e Azadi-Khah va Beraber Talab). As of this date none of the students have been formally charged with any crime. I urge you to investigate the circumstances of their arrest and to release them if they are not charged with a recognizable criminal offence.

• Rosa Essaie (f), member of Iran’s Armenian community, student at Amir Kabir University
• Mehdi Geraylou (m), student at Tehran University
• Anousheh Azadfar (f), student at Tehran University
• Ilnaz Jamshidi (f), student at Free University of Central Tehran
• Rouzbeh Safshekan (m), student at Tehran University
• Nasim Soltan-Beigi (m), Allameh Tabatabai University
• Yaser Pir Hayati (m), student at Shaheed University
• Younes Mir Hosseini (m), student at Shiraz University
• Milad Moini  (m), student at Mazandaran University

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2700 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

Reports from Iran indicate that the recent arrests came in the context of a campaign during the past six weeks by Iranian authorities to place further limits on the freedom of expression on university campuses in Iran. These limits include a new wave of suspensions and expulsions of politically active students, the replacement or forced retirement of reformist professors, and the further banning of a number of student publications deemed politically critical of your government’s policies. Following these measures to further curtail academic freedom, students from universities throughout Iran held simultaneous mass demonstrations and sit-ins on Iran’s University Student’s Day (December 7th, 2007). Those non-violent demonstrations in turn led to more arrests of students. The total number of arrested students is unknown, but reports by authorities in Iran, as well as news reports by the international press, put the number of recently arrested students at several dozen. 

Your Excellency, in the last two years our Committee has observed with great concern the increasing restrictions placed on freedom of expression and academic freedom at Iranian universities. During the past two years our Committee has in fact written to you on seven separate occasions to protest violations of universally accepted standards of academic freedoms by your government. This latest case of harassment, arrest, and detention of university students for the peaceful expression of their guaranteed rights seems to be yet another troubling episode that does further damage to Iran’s long cherished reputation as a society that values intellectual inquiry and freedom of expression.

The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran explicitly protects the rights of individuals to freedom of thought, opinion, and speech (Article 23). The Constitution also explicitly prohibits the exercise of punitive measures against individuals for the exercise of these guaranteed rights (Article 2 and 3). Further, your government’s actions are in violation of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (Article 18, 19, 21), to which the Islamic Republic of Iran is also a state party.

We urge you, Your Excellency, to release all of the students detained in recent weeks. If charges are to be filed against any detained students, we urge that they be internationally recognizable criminal charges and that any trial be conducted openly and according to internationally recognized standards. We also urge you, Your Excellency, to immediately grant the students listed above unfettered access to their relatives and to legal representation, and to guarantee the well-being of all the recently detained students.

Your Excellency, we trust that you will appreciate the seriousness of this matter and will take the appropriate measures to release the detained students. We also ask that you initiate measures that will reverse the restrictions placed on academic freedom at Iranian universities. We look forward to your positive, written response.

Yours Respectfully,
Mervat F. Hatem
MESA President

cc:

Head of the Judiciary
Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Justice Building,
Panzdah-Khordad Square, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: +98 21 3390 4986
Email: info@dadgostary-tehran.ir

President
His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Presidency, Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir

Speaker of Parliament
His Excellency Gholamali Haddad Adel
Majles-e Shoura-ye Eslami, Baharestan Square
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: + 98 21 3355 6408
Email: hadadadel@majlis.ir

December 19, 2007
His Excellency Muhammad Husni Mubarak
President, Arab Republic of Egypt
`Abdin Palace
Cairo, Egypt

Fax: +20-2-2390-1998

Dear President Mubarak,
We are writing on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom.  On May 7, 2007, we wrote to you concerning recurring accounts of severe restrictions on student expression, including disciplinary hearings and suspensions, on several Egyptian university campuses.

We are dismayed to learn that, since that date, rather than abating, the restrictions on academic freedom at Egyptian universities have been infringed by a series of additional actions that risk creating an atmosphere of intimidation rather than fostering the free exchange of ideas essential to the academic enterprise.

According to Egyptian press accounts and human rights organizations:
o       On December 6, security forces intervened against a demonstrations by medical and other students at al-Azhar University against a steady stream of retaliatory measures taken against earlier protests; they also barred journalists attempting to cover the event from entering the campus.
o       On November 28, at a lecture in Helwan University, students from the official student union attacked socialist students from the Engineering faculty Mustafa Shawqi, Khaled al-Sayed, and Nagi Kamel, whose finger was broken. The students were attacked after they protested being marginalized during the lecture’s question-and-answer period. Helwan University president Abdallah Barakat turned over the three students to security forces; security forces referred them to the prosecution, which released them a day later.
o       On November 26, 150 students at Cairo University staged a sit-in and hunger strike to protest their eviction from the university dormitories. In a press release, President of Cairo University Dr. Ali Abdel Rahman said, “The students’ protests constitute incitement to their fellow students and a contravention of university norms.”
o       On November 21, Dean of the Faculty of Commerce at Tanta University suspended four students (Mahmoud Hindy, Ahmed Abdel Salam, Sabri Muhammad, Abdel Halim Muhammad Ibrahim) for “posting inappropriate expressions.” The students had put up signs protesting increases in university fees.
o       On November 17, the Dean of Tanta University’s Sciences Faculty Dr. Ibrahim Kamel al-Shorbagi is reported to have physically assaulted student Yasser Atef and had security guards forcibly drag him to the Dean’s office to prevent him from discussing the increase in university fees with his peers.
o       On October 23, at the Asyut University Faculty of Law, students al-Husseiny Abu Dayf and Muhammad Kamal Eddin were summarily suspended for one month each without first being allowed a hearing, a violation of university by-laws. The students had sued the university president in the courts for raising annual university fees from £E14 to £E200, and the court ruled in their favor. On November 23, Abu Dayf was suspended for one more month for distributing copies of the court ruling to fellow students.

Accounts suggest such actions center on attempts to debate and discuss both issues of specific concern to students as well as more general political issues.  As we noted in our previous letters of 7 May 2007 and 7 November  2007, we are disturbed by the number of incidents in which those engaged in peaceful discussion and other forms of political debate have suffered sanctions from university administrative and disciplinary bodies.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2700 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

Peaceful and free exchange of ideas is at the heart of the academic enterprise, and sanctions on those who engage in such exchanges amounts to a serious violation of academic freedom. As a committee of MESA charged with monitoring infringements on academic freedom, the Committee on Academic Freedom is deeply concerned by the frequency and consistency of these accounts and will therefore continue to follow the issue by monitoring the situation on Egyptian university campuses.

We urge you to investigate the accounts of the kind described in this letter and ensure that the Ministry of Higher Education and the administrations of Egyptian universities allow those who engage in discussion and debate in an academic setting to do so without fear of punitive action.  To that end, we also support the current call by many Egyptian professors and students for an end to the interference of the state security forces in campus affairs. 
We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Laurie Brand
Committee on Academic Freedom, Chair


cc:
Dr. Hany Mahfouz Helal,
Minister of Higher Education
101 Kasr al-Aini St.
Fax: +20-2-2794-1005
hhela@mailer.eun.eg
hhela@link.net

His Excellency Nabil Fahmy
Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt
Fax: +20-2-2244-4319
               
His Excellency Francis J. Ricciardone, Jr.
United States Ambassador to the Arab Republic of Egypt
Fax: +20-2-2797-3200

Mr. Khaled Aly Elbakly
Minister P. and Deputy Permanent Representative
Permanent Mission of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the United Nations
Fax: +20-2-2390-9622

Dr. Ahmad Zaki Badr
President, Ain Shams University
Abbasiyya, 11566
Cairo, Egypt
Fax: +20-2-2684-7824
pres@asunet.shams.edu.eg

Dr. Hosam Eddine Mohammad El-Attar
President, Banha University
Qalyoubiyya, Egypt
Benha.university@gmail.com

Dr. Ali Abdel Rahman Youssef
President, Cairo University
Midan al-Gami’a
Giza, Egypt

Dr. Abd al-Hayy Ebeid
President, Helwan University
Ain Helwan
Cairo, Egypt
Fax: +20-2-2556-5820

Dr. Galal Mostafa Saeed
President, Fayyoum University
Fayyoum 63514, Egypt
Fax: +20-2-2084 637-7064
gms00@fayoum.edu.eg

Dr. Ezzat Abdallah Ahmad
President, Assiut University
Assiut, 71515 Egypt
Fax: +20-2-2088-312-564 or 2088-342-708
sup@acc.aun.edu.eg

Dr. Ahmad al-Tayyeb
President, al-Azhar University
Nasr City, Cairo, Egypt
Fax: +20-2-2261-1404
azhar@azhar.eun.eg

07 November 2007

His Excellency Muhammad Husni Mubarak
President, Arab Republic of Egypt
`Abdin Palace
Cairo, Egypt

Fax: +20-2-390-1998

Dear President Mubarak,

We are writing on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) to follow up on concerns initially expressed in a letter dated 7 May 2007 regarding hearings, suspensions, and arrests on several Egyptian university campuses of students belonging to the Kifaya movement or the Muslim Brotherhood.  Security service and police intervention have most recently aimed at repressing students’ free exercise of their right to vote in student elections. 
  
The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2700 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

According to press and other media reports, for the past two weeks, university administrations and State Security officers have been systematically engineering student union elections by preventing Ikhwan, Kifaya and leftist students from filing candidacies. Campuses have been circled with riot police and trucks, and plainclothes police and armed provocateurs have been allowed onto campuses to disrupt and assault protesting students.  In addition, activist students have been suspended and arrested.

Among the specific cases that have come to our attention are the following:

1.  The Law School Dean at Assiut University has suspended two student
members of Kifaya for one month. 

2.  Four Ikhwan students from the Helwan University School of Social Work have been suspended for the entire semester without first being interrogated or referred to disciplinary tribunals, charged with distributing pamphlets and putting up posters. Three of the four students were also suspended in April for two years each, but re-instated after a court ruled in their favor.

3.  Ten Ikhwan students from Ain Shams who were ordered released by prosecutors on 10/25 were re-arrested and taken to the Interior Ministry headquarters in Lazoghly.  In connection with events the previous day (10/24) on campus, the March 9 Movement for the Independence of Universities and the Press Syndicate both issued statements condemning the armed provocateurs’ storming of the Ain Shams campus. The March 9 statement was signed by 58 faculty members at Ain Shams and other universities and states in part, “The Ain Shams University administration is wholly responsible for the entry of armed thugs onto campus who then assaulted students and journalists.” (al-Masry al-Yawm, 10/29).

4.  Three Ikhwan students at Fayoum University were re-arrested on 10/25 after prosecutors had released them the previous day.

5.  At Cairo University, students have been prevented from staging rallies to express their rejection of improper practices and rigging of student elections. The university has barred students from entering or exiting from the main gate of the university, which has led to clashes with university guards.

Moreover, at least one professor associated with the National Democratic Party, Dr Muhammad Fathi Abd-al-Alim of the school of science, threatened his  students that if they did not participate in the election process, he would give them lesser grades. 

6.  At Banha University the university administration deleted the names of all Muslim Brotherhood candidates from the final lists of student union elections. This was preceded by a series of violations. Nomination of student candidates was permitted only on Thursday, 11 October 2007, which was the last day of school before the Id holiday. Consequently, no one was on campus. 

7.  At al-Azhar (Assiut campus), two students in the medical school were interrogated and suspended on charges of recruiting for the Muslim Brothers on campus.  100 students were expelled from the dormitories for belonging to the Muslim Brothers.

The free participation in student elections is a key element of academic freedom.  We are deeply disturbed by the reports coming from Egypt indicating continuing intimidation and assaults against student activists.  We call on you to look into these violations, to put an end to them, to reinstate any students suspended,  and release any arrested for the simple exercise of their right to elect representatives.

Sincerely,

Zachary Lockman
MESA President

cc:          

Dr. Hany Mahfouz Helal,
Minister of Higher Education
101 Kasr al-Aini St.
Fax: +20-2-794-1005
hhela@mailer.eun.eg
hhela@link.net

His Excellency Nabil Fahmy
Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt
Fax: +20-2-244-4319
               
His Excellency Francis J. Ricciardone, Jr.
United States Ambassador to the Arab Republic of Egypt
Fax: +20-2-797-3200

Mr. Khaled Aly Elbakly
Minister P. and Deputy Permanent Representative
Permanent Mission of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the United Nations
Fax: +20-2-390-9622

Dr. Ahmad Zaki Badr
President, Ain Shams University
Abbasiyya, 11566
Cairo, Egypt
Fax: +20-2-684-7824
pres@asunet.shams.edu.eg

Dr. Hosam Eddine Mohammad El-Attar
President, Banha University
Qalyoubiyya, Egypt
Benha.university@gmail.com

Dr. Ali Abdel Rahman Youssef
President, Cairo University
Midan al-Gami’a
Giza, Egypt

Dr. Abd al-Hayy Ebeid
President, Helwan University
Ain Helwan
Cairo, Egypt
Fax: +20-2-556-5820

Dr. Galal Mostafa Saeed
President, Fayyoum University
Fayyoum 63514, Egypt
Fax: +20-2-084 637-7064
gms00@fayoum.edu.eg

Dr. Ezzat Abdallah Ahmad
President, Assiut University
Assiut, 71515 Egypt
Fax: +20-2-088-312-564 or 088-342-708
sup@acc.aun.edu.eg

Dr. Ahmad al-Tayyeb
President, al-Azhar University
Nasr City, Cairo, Egypt
Fax: +20-2-261-1404
azhar@azhar.eun.eg

4 November 2007

Father Dennis Dease, President
Mail AQU 100
University of St. Thomas
2115 Summit Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55205

Dear Father Dease,

                I write to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) first to express our appreciation for your decision on October 10 to invite Archbishop Desmond Tutu to speak at the University. We commend you for your candid admission that your earlier decision to withhold the invitation on the basis of incomplete information on Tutu’s positions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was a mistake. However, in view of your commitment to academic freedom at St. Thomas, we also wish to express our concern about another aspect of this case: The removal of Dr. Cris Toffolo as director of the Justice and Peace Studies Program by the university administration.

                MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2700 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

                Dr. Toffolo in a public statement admitted that she and a priest-colleague in the program sent a letter to Archbishop Tutu informing him that the university had decided not to invite him to speak on campus as part of a program sponsored by PeaceJam International. Dr. Toffolo believes that she was removed from her position because of her resistance to this decision and the action she took to inform Archbishop Tutu and others of the university’s position. In the August 1 letter dismissing her from her position, the university’s executive vice president for academic affairs, Dr. Tom Rochon, said Dr. Toffolo was being dismissed “for cause” for four reasons including the letter that she wrote to Tutu with copies sent to the executive director of PeaceJam International, the Episcopalian Justice office that deals with Christian-Jewish dialogue and three retired senior clergy whom she and her colleague had consulted for advice. Dr. Rochon later told the student newspaper that Dr. Toffolo was removed for lapses of ethics and competence in the performance of her job, charges that Dr. Toffolo adamantly denies. A petition signed by faculty and staff asks that the university reinstate Dr. Toffolo as director of the Justice and Peace Studies Program and apologize for the punitive actions taken against her.

                The university’s commitment to academic freedom should protect a faculty member such as Dr. Toffolo from reprisals when speaking or writing in opposition to a decision made by the university administration. Archbishop Tutu has stated that he will not speak at St. Thomas unless Dr. Toffolo is re-instated in her position, which would in effect nullify your decision to invite him to speak on campus. Unless the removal of Dr. Toffolo is reversed, the university’s actions will have a chilling effect on free speech at St. Thomas Univesity.   

                Therefore, we call on you and the university administration to uphold the university’s commitment to academic freedom and re-instate Dr. Toffolo in her position.  

Sincerely,

Zachary Lockman
MESA President

October 19, 2007

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
3 Kaplan St., Qiryat Ben-Gurion
PO Box 187
91919 Jerusalem
Israel

via fax: 972-2-6512631

Dear Prime Minister Olmert:

I write to you on behalf of the Middle East Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) to express our concern about the restriction of movement and travel imposed by your government on Palestinian students from Gaza. Recently, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a petition brought by Gisha, the Israeli human rights organization, on behalf of Khaled al-Mudallal, a resident of Rafah. Mr. Mudallal was prevented from resuming his studies in management and business at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2700 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

Israel’s Supreme Court decision of October 2, 2007 to accept the government’s argument that Gazans with study permits trapped in Gaza should wait for the resumption of the shuttle bus service to Eretz crossing, discontinued since September 6, amounts to a denial of Mr. al-Mudallal’s rights to an education. Israel has the responsibility to ensure the Right to Education as enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which it ratified in 1991.

The ongoing disruption of Palestinian education constitutes a violation of a basic human right that will have long-term and negative political, economic, and humanitarian consequences for all peoples involved.   We call on the Israeli government to allow Mr. al-Mudallal as well as the hundreds of other registered Gazan university students to travel to their educational institutions, whether abroad or in the West Bank.

Sincerely,

Zachary Lockman
MESA President

cc:           Minister of Defense Ehud Barak
                Prime Minister Gordon Brown
                Gisha

4 September 2007

Marshall M. Bouton, President
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs
332 S. Michigan Avenue, Suite 1100
Chicago, Illinois 60604-4416

Dear Mr. Bouton:

I am writing to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA). We wish to convey to you our distress regarding your decision to cancel a forum, scheduled for September 27, 2007, in which two of this country’s most distinguished professors of Political Science, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, were to speak about their new book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. This action on your part constitutes a serious violation of the principles of free expression and the free exchange of ideas. We urge you to invite professors Walt and Mearsheimer to speak at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs at a mutually convenient time in the near future. It is important to rectify the effect that your cancellation on July 24 has had in reinforcing an intellectual environment that seeks to restrict informed and critical discussion of issues that are vital to this country’s future.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2600 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

According to numerous press reports, pressure from supporters of Israel who are critical of Walt and Mearsheimer led you to take the highly unusual step of canceling the previously scheduled event.  In these reports, you are cited as saying that the speakers are controversial and that you preferred that they appear in “an appropriate forum” balanced by an opposing viewpoint. Yet, John J. Mearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, have spoken before the Council on numerous occasions in the past without being forced to share the podium with those who oppose their points of view.  It is only in this case, that of a presentation critical of Israeli policy and its supporters, that they have been subjected to the litmus test of “balance.” We regret that you chose to succumb to pressure exerted on the Council and are dismayed that in justifying your actions you have adopted the argument that controversial ideas should not be aired unless they are immediately and at the same event “balanced” by opposing views. 
 
As the Association of American University Professors, the American Civil Liberties Union, and many other organizations have persuasively argued in official statements, the argument of “balance,” selectively invoked, has been repeatedly used to stifle the free exchange of ideas, especially when it comes to discussions about Israel and U.S. foreign policy. We are concerned that your decision --reminiscent of that taken by the Council-General of the Polish Consulate in New York to cancel a talk on Israel and U.S. foreign policy on October 3, 2006 by the renowned historian New York University Professor Tony Judt-- contributes to raising the wall of censorship.  Indeed, three other organizations in Chicago as well the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, among others, have since either cancelled or turned down appearances by the authors.

We strongly urge you to reconsider your decision of July 24, and in the process affirm your support for free expression and the free exchange of ideas, by inviting Professors Walt and Mearsheimer to give a talk at the Council without requiring that they share the podium and without restrictions on the content of their presentation.
 
We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Zachary Lockman
MESA President

4 September 2007

The Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M., Ed.D.
President De Paul University
1 E. Jackson
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Fax: 312-362-7577

Dear President Holtschneider:

I write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our concern and dismay at what appear to be your university’s multiple and egregious violations of generally accepted standards of academic procedure in handling the tenure case of Professor Norman G. Finkelstein.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in its field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2700 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.
 
As you will remember, the Committee sent you a letter dated April 10, 2007, in which it expressed its grave concern about the politicization of Professor Finkelstein’s tenure case as a result of the campaign launched against him by Professor Alan Dershowitz of the Harvard University Law School.  In that letter we urged you to ensure that Professor Finkelstein be evaluated for tenure at DePaul solely on the basis of his scholarship, his teaching, and his service to his university and professional communities, and that all aspects of Professor Finkelstein’s tenure process adhere to generally accepted procedures and standards. We regret that you did not choose to respond to that letter.

Unfortunately, developments at DePaul since that letter was sent indicate that proper procedures and standards were not being adhered to in Professor Finkelstein’s case. As a consequence the Committee now feels compelled to write you again, because in the aftermath of DePaul’s decision to deny tenure to Professor Finkelstein your administration appears to have violated accepted academic procedures and standards in at least two ways.

First, we deem unacceptable your administration’s refusal to permit Professor Finkelstein to pursue a formal appeal of the decision to deny him tenure. As you no doubt know, such a right of appeal is accepted by most leading institutions of higher education in this country. Our concern about this arbitrary and unjust decision is shared by your own university’s Faculty Council and by the American Association of University Professors, among others.

Second, we feel obliged to register our distress at reports that your administration has, just a few days before the beginning of the fall semester, suddenly decided to prevent Professor Finkelstein from teaching during his terminal year at DePaul, taken away his office, and put him on paid administrative leave. As you surely know, it is customary to permit faculty who have been denied tenure to teach for one final year. Your administration’s abrupt decision to prevent Professor Finkelstein (who is by all accounts an outstanding teacher) from doing so, without his agreement and despite strong objections from members of your own faculty and student body, strikes us as high-handed, if not vindictive.

However one judges Professor Finkelstein’s qualifications for tenure, it seems clear that DePaul has mishandled his case in a variety of ways and has repeatedly violated generally accepted standards of academic process and fair play. In so doing your administration has in effect given aid and comfort to those who seek to undermine the academy as a bastion of academic freedom and as a forum for the open and critical discussion of issues of vital public concern.

We live in a time when scholars, teachers and institutions of higher education across the United States are facing extraordinary pressures and vituperative assaults from individuals and organized groups based outside the academy and pursuing narrow partisan agendas, particularly with respect to United States policy in the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is therefore highly distressing that you and your administration at DePaul have in this case signally failed to adhere to accepted standards of academic procedure or to protect the rights of every member of your faculty.
We therefore call on you to promptly reconsider and reverse both of these arbitrary and misguided decisions, in order to undo the damage already done to DePaul University’s reputation as an institution of higher education and to help protect the norms of academic life and the principle of academic freedom that your university professes to cherish.

Sincerely,

Zachary Lockman
MESA President

June 11, 2007
Gerald A. Reynolds
Chair of the Commission
United States Commission on Civil Rights
Regional Office
624 Ninth Street, NW
Washington DC 20425

Dear Chairman Reynolds and Members of the Commission,

I write to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) to express our grave concern with aspects both of the briefing report titled “Campus Anti-Semitism,” released by the United States Commission on Civil Rights earlier this year, and of the “Findings and Recommendations of the United States Commission on Civil Rights Regarding Campus Anti-Semitism,” dated April 3, 2006.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2700 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

MESA rejects all forms of hate speech and discrimination, including anti-Semitism. It supports prompt and forceful action in response to anti-Semitic incidents on university campuses. MESA also endorses the Commission’s efforts to increase awareness of anti-Semitism on university campuses.

However, MESA is concerned that the briefing report and findings issued by the Commission may actually weaken efforts to combat anti-Semitism by expanding its definition to include an indefensibly broad range of legitimate speech and conduct. We are also concerned that false allegations associating Middle East studies programs and faculty with anti-Semitism may contribute to an already troubling environment of harassment, intimidation and censorship of faculty and students on college and university campuses, thereby threatening academic freedom.

Three issues are of particular concern to MESA. First, we are deeply troubled by the Commission’s apparent acceptance of an overly broad and vague definition of anti-Semitism that dangerously blurs the boundaries between actual anti-Semitic speech and conduct, on the one hand, and criticism of Israel, Zionism, or U.S. policy in the Middle East on the other. As a result, the briefing report and the Commission’s findings seem to accept or even endorse assertions made by panelists who submitted statements to the Commission that entirely legitimate views and policy positions with which they disagree should be characterized as anti-Semitic. Such assertions are particularly distressing when they involve scholarship and teaching by college and university faculty. Wherever anti-Semitism surfaces, an immediate and vigorous response is necessary. But efforts to demonize academic and other critics of Israel, Zionism, and U.S. policy in the Middle East by tarring them with the brush of anti-Semitism are clearly unacceptable and merit no less urgent and vigorous a response.
      
Second, we reject as unfounded the allegations and insinuations presented in the briefing report that university departments of Middle East studies promote anti-Semitism. The briefing report presents no evidence whatsoever that would substantiate such scurrilous claims, and none of the instances of anti-Semitism referred to in the report involved a federally-funded Middle East studies center. Unfortunately, the Commission permitted members of the briefing panel to repeat, without challenge, unfounded allegations concerning individual faculty members specializing in the study of the Middle East and/or Islam, all of whom have rejected the charges against them and denied their truthfulness. Several of these faculty members have in fact been subjected to exhaustive investigations by their universities which have not substantiated the allegations repeated in the Commission’s briefing.

We also insist that it is inappropriate and inaccurate for the Commission to have included among its findings the assertion that “many university departments of Middle East studies provide one-sided, highly polemical academic presentations and some may repress legitimate debate concerning Israel.” This assertion too is completely unsupported by evidence and should be stricken from the Commission’s findings.

Third, we are concerned that the procedure by which the briefing report was produced was defective; that much of its tone and contents is highly polemical and fall far short of the standard that Americans have a right to expect the Commission to adhere to; and that it may contribute to an environment on university campuses that undermines academic freedom as well as the kind of first-rate scholarly research and teaching on the Middle East and the Muslim world which our country so desperately needs.

As the briefing report notes, all of the universities invited to take part in the briefing declined to do so. To our knowledge, no representative of university-based Middle East studies programs or of the academic Middle East studies community was invited to participate. The briefing report, and the responses to it by several universities against which allegations were made, make it clear that the panelists presented a very partial, highly ideological, and narrowly partisan understanding of academic Middle East studies in this country and sought to define anti-Semitism extremely broadly and loosely. We fear that their purpose in so doing was to advance their own partisan political agenda, strengthen efforts to impose political litmus tests on college and university faculty, subject federally-funded Middle East studies programs to politically-motivated oversight, undermine academic freedom, and stifle free and open discussion on public issues of critical national importance.

We also note that efforts to dilute and expand the definition of anti-Semitism so as to encompass legitimate speech and conduct can have damaging consequences for efforts to address and combat real anti-Semitism. By adopting a vague and politicized definition of this insidious form of hate speech, the Commission increases the risk that attention and resources that are better directed toward combating real anti-Semitism will instead be diverted to politically-motivated efforts to censor unpopular or controversial views expressed by university faculty. We urge the Commission not to pursue or endorse such a course, but rather to focus its efforts on real forms and incidents of discrimination and hate speech, including anti-Semitism.

By accepting panelists’ unsubstantiated allegations and insinuations about biased and unprofessional conduct among Middle East studies programs and faculty, and by allowing them to be publicly tainted with the brush of anti-Semitism, the Commi