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.

Joint Letter sent with American Anthropological Association Committee for Human Rights
November 5, 2008

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran
c/o H.E. Mohammad Khazaee
Ambassador of Iran to the United Nations
Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations
622 Third Ave, 34th Floor
New York, NY 10017, USA

Fax: 212-867-7086

Your Excellency,

      We are writing on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and the American Anthropological Association Committee for Human Rights to express our concern over the recent arrest of Ms. Esha Momeni, a graduate student in the department of journalism and media studies at California State University, Northridge. Since Ms. Momeni’s arrest on October 15, your government has issued very few details regarding the reasons for her arrest or the circumstances of her current physical condition. News reports from Iran and international sources indicate that she is being held in Evin prison. As of this date, your government has neither formally charged Ms. Momeni with any crime nor allowed her to meet with legal representatives. We urge that you immediately investigate the circumstances of her detention, guarantee her physical well being while in custody, and release her if she is not to be charged with a criminal offense.
      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 3000 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 American Anthropological Association Committee for Human Rights is elected by the membership of the AAA – a professional organization of over 11,000 anthropologists that is committed to the promotion and protection of the rights of people everywhere to the full realization of their humanity.
      Ms. Momeni was arrested in Tehran while conducting research for her Master’s Degree in journalism and media arts. She traveled to Iran in July of this year to visit family members as well as to conduct further research required for the completion of her Master’s thesis. As part of this research, Ms. Momeni conducted videotaped interviews with Iranians working in the areas of public policy and journalism. On October 15th, Ms. Momeni was arrested in Tehran after being stopped by authorities for a minor traffic violation. At the time of her arrest, the authorities neither charged her with a crime nor explained the reason for her arrest. Subsequent to her arrest, police arrived at Ms. Momeni’s family home and began an extensive search of the property. As a result of the search, authorities confiscated computers, videotapes, books, and writings belonging to Ms. Momeni. Given the circumstances of her arrest and the subsequent search and confiscation of materials directly related to her research, our committee is very concerned that her arrest is related to her academic and scholarly work. These circumstances lead us to believe that Ms. Momeni’s arrest is a violation of the basic principles of academic freedom.
      The detention of Ms. Momeni does further damage to the reputation of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a country where students, academics, and intellectuals can engage in critical debate free from government intrusion. This is particularly distressing and unfortunate given Iran’s rich history of scholarship and tradition of free intellectual inquiry. Academic freedom is in fact essential to achieving your government’s stated goals of international cooperation and intellectual excellence in higher education. We urge you to reaffirm your commitment to these goals by taking the matter of Ms. Momeni’s detention seriously.
      We urge you to provide further information about Ms. Momeni’s condition, as well as to immediately provide her with access to legal counsel, family members, and any necessary medical treatment. We also urge you to clarify the circumstances of her arrest and to work towards her timely release.

Sincerely,
Mervat F. Hatem. PhD
MESA President
Professor of Political Science, Howard University

                                                                                               
Victoria Sanford, PhD
Chair, AAA Committee for Human Rights
Associate Professor of Anthropology, Lehman College & the Graduate Center,
      City University of NY

Letter sent November 4, 2008

His Excellency Muhammad Husni Mubarak
President, Arab Republic of Egypt
`Abdin Palace
Cairo, Egypt
Fax: +20-2-2390-1998

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

Dear President Mubarak and Minister Helal,

I am writing on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) to express serious concerns regarding the most recent wave of violations of academic freedom on several Egyptian university campuses. Intervention by security services and university administrations has sought to repress students’ free exercise of their right to run and vote in student elections, and their right to engage in other forms of campus activism.

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 3000 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 several weeks, university administrations and State Security officers have been systematically interfering in student union elections by preventing Muslim Brotherhood students from filing candidacies. Campuses have been circled with riot police and trucks, and plainclothes police and armed provocateurs have been allowed onto university grounds to disrupt and assault protesting students. In addition, activist students have been suspended, arrested, and/or denied university housing based on their political affiliation.
Among the specific cases that have come to our attention are the following:

• At the beginning of the academic year, before the start of student union elections, 14 students at Mansoura University were referred to disciplinary hearings for organizing orientation activities for new students (al-Dustor, September 26, 2008)

• 62 students at Mansoura University have been subjected to various sanctions for setting up parallel student union elections to protest the rigging of regular student union elections. Some students have been referred to disciplinary hearings, others have been suspended, and still others have been threatened with suspension (al-Masry al-Yawm, October 29, 2008; al-Badeel, October 30, 2008)

• Two students at Helwan University were arrested by State Security officers after a heated verbal argument between the students and a campus security guard. Despite a court order freeing the students, they remain detained by State Security (al-Masry al-Yawm, October 28, 2008)

• Four Ikhwan students at Fayoum University have been suspended for one week for organizing an orientation for incoming students (al-Masry al-Yawm, October 28, 2008). Seven additional students at the same university have been arrested by State Security officers in connection with a campus campaign organized by Ikhwan students to “promote students’ identification with Arab and Muslim identity,” (al-Masry al-Yawm, October 30, 2008)

• Four students at al-Azhar University were suspended for attempting to run in student union elections (al-Masry al-Yawm, October 21, 2008).

• Six students from the 6 April youth movement at Ain Shams University were detained for 9 hours, and one of them was referred to a disciplinary hearing, for putting up posters and distributing pamphlets expressing opposition to the ruling National Democratic Party’s policies (al-Masry al-Yawm, November 4, 2008)

• Fifteen students at Helwan University were beaten by campus security guards and administrative staff, in the presence of the head of the Helwan police station, for putting up posters criticizing the ruling National Democratic Party’s slogans and policies (al-Badeel, November 4, 2008; al-Masry al-Yawm, November 4, 2008)

Article 18 of the Egyptian Constitution guarantees the independence of universities and scientific research centers, a right that Egyptian academics and students are seeking to uphold. The free participation in student elections is a key element of academic freedom codified in Egyptian laws governing universities and student organizations.

We are deeply disturbed by the reports indicating continuing intimidation and assaults against student activists and continuing interference by security forces in university affairs, in violation of Egypt’s laws. We call on you to investigate these violations, to put an end to them, to reinstate suspended students, and to release students arrested for attempting to elect their campus representatives.

We await your response.

Sincerely,
Amy W. Newhall
Executive Director

cc:       His Excellency Nabil Fahmy, Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt
            Dr. Abdallah Barakat, President, Helwan University
            Dr. Ahmad Magdy al-Gohary, President, Fayoum University
            Dr. Ahmad Bayoumi Shehab El-Din, President, Mansoura University
            Dr. Ahmad El-Tayeb, President, University of al-Azhar

Letter sent November 4, 2008

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran
c/o H.E. Mohammad Khazaee
Ambassador of Iran to the United Nations
Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations
622 Third Ave, 34th Floor
New York, NY 10017, USA

Fax: 212-867-7086
 
Your Excellency,

      I am writing on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to express our concern over the 26, October confiscation of the passport of Ms. Sussan Tahmasebi by security officials at Imam Khomeini airport.  Ms. Tahmasebi, a scholar and women’s rights activist, was thereby prevented from travelling to the United States where she is scheduled to participate as a panelist in the MESA annual meeting, scheduled for November 22-25.  Your government has issued no details regarding the reasons for preventing Ms. Tahmasebi from travelling.  I urge you immediately to investigate the reasons behind the confiscation of her passport, and, if she is not to be charged with a criminal offense, to see that it is returned to her promptly so that she may be permitted to travel.

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 3000 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 26 October, Ms. Tahmasebi had already passed the passport checkpoint when security officials from the office of the President paged her.  They proceeded to confiscate her passport and prevent her from travelling. She then returned home to find five security agents at her door who presented her with a court order to search her home.  While also filming the home, the security officials seized a number of CDs, books, writings, texts addressing peace-building, cassette tapes and a laptop.  They also presented her with a summons, which had in fact been issued a month earlier, to present herself to the Security Branch of the Revolutionary Courts within three days.  Ms. Tahmasebi appeared at the security branch of the investigative court of the Revolutionary Courts on Wednesday October 29, 2008. While her lawyer Zohreh Arzani was allowed to accompany her to court, Arzani was not permitted to be present during the interrogation, which lasted for more than five hours. According to the Security officials who interrogated her, the interrogations are part of ongoing investigations and will continue. 
 
      This is the fourth time that security officials have prevented Ms. Tahmasebi from travelling.  Despite her repeated inquiries, she has never been provided with information on the reasons for these actions.  Given the circumstances of the passport confiscation and the subsequent search and confiscation of materials directly related to her research, our committee is very concerned that the travel ban and subsequent interrogations are related to her academic and scholarly work. Coming only a few days after the arrest by your government of Ms. Esha Momeni, a graduate student in the department of journalism and media studies at California State University, Northridge, we are particularly concerned that the travel ban on Ms. Tahmasebi is yet another instance of the violation of basic principles of academic freedom.

      The confiscation of Ms. Tahmasebi’s passport does further damage to the reputation of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a country where students, academics, and intellectuals can engage in critical debate free from government intrusion. This is particularly distressing and unfortunate given Iran’s rich history of scholarship and tradition of free intellectual inquiry. Academic freedom is in fact essential to achieving your government’s stated goals of international cooperation and intellectual excellence in higher education. We urge you to reaffirm your commitment to these goals by taking the matter of Ms. Tahmasebi’s detention seriously.

      We urge you to clarify the reasons for the confiscation of her passport and to work toward a speedy resolution of this matter so that she may travel.  We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
Mervat Hatem
MESA President
Professor of Political Science, Howard University

September 12, 2008

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran
c/o H.E. Mohammad Khazaee
Ambassador of Iran to the United Nations
Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations
622 Third Ave, 34th Floor
New York, NY 10017, USA

Fax: 212-867-7086

Your Excellency,

I am writing on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America to express our grave concern over the recent arrest and detention of Dr. Mehdi Zakerian, a professor of international relations and human rights law at Islamic Azad University in Tehran. Since Dr. Zakerian’s arrest in mid-August, very few details have been forthcoming regarding the reasons for his arrest, the location of his detention, or his current physical condition. As of this date, your government has filed no formal charges against him. I urge you to investigate the circumstances of his arrest immediately, guarantee his physical well being while in custody, and release him if he is not charged with a violation of the law.

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 2800 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. Zakerian is a respected scholar in the fields of international relations and human rights law in the Islamic world. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from Azad University, has an extensive record of scholarly publication, and has lectured at numerous Iranian universities. For a number of years, Dr. Zakerian has also been a member of the editorial boards of the Tehran-based bilingual academic journals International Studies and Regional Studies Quarterly. He has also worked as a senior researcher at Tehran’s Center for Strategic Studies of the Middle East.

Dr. Zakerian, who had previously been a professor at the University of Tehran, was summarily dismissed in September 2007, without explanation, as part of the much-publicized campaign of dismissals of liberal and reformist professors from Iran’s universities. Our committee wrote to you, in a letter dated September 13, 2006, criticizing this policy of dismissing university professors for reasons relating to their academic and scholarly points of view. Such a policy is a clear violation of internationally recognized principles of academic freedom. At the time of his arrest in August 2008, Dr. Zakerian was a professor at Azad University and had been invited to spend an academic year as a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. We are concerned that, like his earlier dismissal from his position at the University of Tehran, his recent detention is also connected to his scholarly and intellectual work, and thus a further violation of the basic principles of academic freedom.
The detention of Dr. Zakerian does further damage to the reputation of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a country where students, academics, and intellectuals can engage in critical debate free from government intrusion. This is particularly distressing and unfortunate given Iran’s rich history of scholarship and tradition of free intellectual inquiry. Academic freedom is in fact essential to achieving your government’s stated goals of international cooperation and intellectual excellence in higher education. We urge you to reaffirm your commitment to these goals by taking the matter of Dr. Zakerian’s detention seriously.
Your Excellency, we trust that you will take the appropriate measures in this matter. We urge you to provide further information about Dr. Zakarian’s location and condition, as well as immediately to accord him access to legal counsel, family members, and any necessary medical treatment. We also urge you to clarify the circumstances of his arrest and to work towards his timely release.
            We look forward to your reply,
 
Sincerely,

Mervat Hatem
MESA President
                                                                                  
cc: William Burke-White, University of Pennsylvania Law School

July 22, 2008

HRH Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud
Minister of Interior
Ministry of Interior
PO Box 2933
Riyadh 11134
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
via fax 011-966-1-403-1185

Your Highness:

On 30 May 2008 the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association wrote to you to express our deep concern over the arrest and detention of Professor Matrouk Al-Faleh of the Department of Political Science at King Saud University. Professor Al-Faleh was arrested sometime after leaving his house on May 19, 2008.

Since sending that letter, additional, disturbing information about Prof. Al-Faleh’s situation has come to our attention. Although formal charges have still not been brought against him, we have learned that he has been imprisoned in Al-Hair prison, a maximum security facility. It is also our understanding that he has now been officially dismissed from his position as professor of political science with no possibility of reinstatement. Moreover, to underline his insistence on having a lawyer present during any interrogation, Prof. Faleh has undertaken a hunger strike.

As we noted in our previous letter, MESA's Committee on Academic Freedom takes particular interest in Professor Al-Faleh’s case because he was selected as the recipient of MESA's academic freedom award in November 2004. MESA, which promotes scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa and has more than 2800 members worldwide, is the preeminent organization in the field. It 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. In bestowing its academic freedom award upon Professor Al-Faleh, MESA cited him for "his courageous and principled stance. He and his colleagues have made a brave stand in favor of freedom of speech and academic freedom, and they deserve our support and our admiration."

We are, therefore, particularly disturbed that Professor Al-Faleh has not been processed by the Saudi judicial system, that, in the absence of such processing, he has apparently been dismissed from his university post, and that he is currently on a hunger strike.
Thus, once again we urge you to accord Professor Al-Faleh his full rights to express himself, both politically and academically--the same rights that he advocates so forcefully for others. We also ask, on behalf of our organization, that you ensure that Professor Al-Faleh be granted access to a lawyer, be released promptly or be charged with a criminal offense, and if he is charged, that he be tried before a court that meets international fair trial standards.

We look forward to receiving your response.

Respectfully,
Mervat F. Hatem
MESA President
Professor of Political Science, Howard University

cc:
His Excellency Adel A. Al-Jubeir, Saudi Ambassador to the United States
King Saud University, Department of Political Science

July 14, 2008

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: 202-244-4319

Your Excellencies,

I write on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to express our deep concern about the delay of the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education in replying to a US Fulbright Commission recommendation for a grant to an American graduate student and the rejection of that recommendation without a clearly stated reason.

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 2800 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 understand that there is a formal agreement or a protocol which regulates relations between the US Fulbright Commission and Egypt. Our intent is not to question its contents. Our goal is, rather, to draw your attention to the need for greater transparency regarding the research topics the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education deems appropriate for Fulbright scholars and about how quickly it will reply to recommendations made by the US Fulbright Commission. It is in the best interests of both the US and Egypt that US students and scholars learn about Egyptian society, culture, and politics. It is also in the best interests of both countries that students and scholars be encouraged to study Arabic through extended stays in Egypt.

Because the application process for grants like the Fulbright is so long and time-consuming, it is essential that those involved in its administration act quickly. Students and scholars must apply for such research fellowships a full year before it is to take effect. When they are notified that their application has met with favor, they need time to arrange for all the practical details that a prolonged absence requires. And if the application does not meet with favor, they need time to make alternative arrangements.
 
 The most recent case, involving an American graduate student from the University of Arizona, is especially problematic. First, the refusal came so late that the student was unable to arrange for an alternative research opportunity. Second, the reason given for the refusal was not clear.

As this case and others like it become better known, there will be two immediate consequences neither of which is desirable. First, US students and scholars will increasingly turn away from attempting to study Egypt. Second, they will decide to seek funding opportunities that are more reliable than those offered by the Fulbright Commission. Not only will scholarship in the US suffer, but so too will scholarship in Egypt. Indeed, the whole purpose of the Fulbright program risks being thwarted by the continuation of these practices.

 With all due respect and prompted by the high regard in which we hold the cultural and scholarly traditions of Egypt, we urge the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education to implement clear and objective standards for judging research projects and to communicate them to the US Fulbright Commission. We also urge the Ministry to respond quickly and efficiently to the recommendations submitted by the US Fulbright Commission.
 
We look forward to your response.

Sincerely yours,
Amy Newhall
Executive Director
MESA

cc:
Her Excellency Margaret Scobey.
United States Ambassador to the Arab Republic of Egypt
Fax: +20-2-797-3200

The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
Secretary of State
U.S. Dept. of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Fax: 202-647-2283

Dr. Bruce Lohof
Executive Director, Binational Fulbright Commission in Egypt
21 Amer St., Messaha, Dokki, 12311, Giza, Egypt
Fax: + 202 2795 7893

June 9, 2008
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20520

via fax: 202-647-2283

Dear Secretary Rice:

I write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our concern regarding the State Department’s failure to respond in a timely fashion to the visa request of Professor Mahmoud Abossowa of Fatah University in Tripoli, Libya. As a result, Professor Abossowa was unable to attend a conference to which he had been invited at Harvard University, 16-18 May 2008.
 
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 2800 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.
Professor Abossowa was invited by the Islamic Legal Studies Program of Harvard University Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts to participate in an international conference on Waqf (pious endowments). Despite applying for his visa using the online visa request form in December 2007, well in advance of the May 2008 conference, and despite traveling from Tripoli, Libya to Tunis, Tunisia, for an interview with U.S. consular officials on 11 April 2008, no decision was made on his visa. Telephone calls and letters from Harvard’s Islamic Legal Studies Program also failed to elicit a decision. The result was the regrettable absence of Prof. Abossowa from this international conference.

MESA is committed to fostering the free exchange of knowledge as a human right and to inhibit infringements on that right by government restrictions on scholars. The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provide the principal standards by which human rights violations are identified today. Those rights include the right to education and work, freedom of movement and residence, and freedom of association and assembly. Infringements include governmental refusal to allow scholars to conduct scholarly research, publish their findings, deliver academic lectures, and travel to international scholarly meetings. We believe that the failure to respond to the visa requests of academics—treatment which effectively constitutes a denial of the visa—represents just such an infringement.

Had the failure of the State Department to respond to Prof. Abossowa’s visa request been an isolated incident, we would still have voiced our concern. Unfortunately, however, the treatment suffered by Prof. Abossowa is not unique, but rather an experience to which numerous Arab and/or Muslim scholars and students have been subject in recent years.  Such treatment is profoundly counter-productive to the stated aims of our national policy. If the United States truly seeks a better understanding of and relationship with the Arab/Muslim world, it must be open to receiving and hosting a range of scholars from the region.
   
We urge you to look into the State Department’s failure to respond in the case of Prof. Abossowa. More generally, we ask that you review a process of visa application and processing which has been shown repeatedly in recent years seriously and negatively to interfere with the higher education community’s capacity to fulfill our core mission and which represents a serious threat to academic freedom.

We look forward to your response.
Sincerely,

Mervat F. Hatem
MESA President
Professor of Political Science, Howard University

cc: Ambassador Robert F. Godec
Consul Sean Cooper

Reply Received June 30, 2008

June 18, 2008
United States Department of State
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Dr. Hatem:

This is in response to your letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice regarding the pending nonimmigrant visa application of Mr. Mahmoud Abossawa. We appreciate your patience in awaiting a reply.

We reviewed Department records and learned that the security clearance for Mr. Abossawa remains pending. The U.S. Department of State acts as a coordinator in our federal government’s efforts to endure that all mandated security clearances are performed on each visa applicant. When processing visa applications, U.S. Embassies must scrupulously carry out all legal and procedural requirements for the protection and security of the United States.

We are working with the relevant agencies to complete all clearance requests as expeditiously as possible. As you can appreciate, security clearances are of critical importance to our national security. Each case is unique and warrants the full scrutiny of the agencies involved in the process for which a set time frame is not appropriate. When the clearance process is concluded, the Embassy will notify Mr. Abossawa.

We regret that Mr. Abossawa was unable to receive a visa in time to attend the conference held by the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard University; however, the clearance process cannot be accelerated or waived.

We want to assure you that we are fully cognizant of the importance of international participation in programs and conferences at U.S. colleges and universities. The Department of State recognizes the significant academic, cross-cultural, and economic benefits that international students and scholars bring to our country, and are committed to fostering academic and scientific exchanges worldwide. We have made, and will continue to make, enormous efforts to ensure that foreign scholars are able to travel to the United States to study and work in a timely manner.

We hope this information was helpful.

Sincerely,
Jane Burt-Lynn
Chief
Public Inquiries Division
Visa Service

June 9, 2008
LTG Robert M. Williams, Commandant
U.S. Army War College
Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013
Robert.m.williams@us.army.mil

Dear Gen. Williams:

On behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), I am writing to express our concern about complaints by Dr. Sherifa Zuhur, Research Professor of Islamic and Regional Studies at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College (USAWC) and a member of MESA, that she has been treated by USAWC authorities in ways that may violate USAWC’s stated policy with regard to academic freedom, as well as the standards of USAWC’s accrediting organization, the Middle States Association of Colleges.

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 2800 members worldwide. MESA is committed to defending academic freedom, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

USAWC policy states that “academic freedom for its faculty and students is fundamental and essential to the health of the academic institution.” However, Professor Zuhur has reported to us that, in apparent violation of this policy, she has been subjected to censorship and harassment because of views she has expressed or which have been imputed to her. Among other things, Professor Zuhur reports that she has had one or more scheduled lectures at USAWC cancelled at the last minute, apparently because some USAWC officials disagreed with her opinions about, and analyses of, U.S. policy in the Middle East, and also that she has been harassed for allegedly failing to comply with USAWC’s procedures for prior review of publications and public statements – procedures that she believes have been applied arbitrarily and inconsistently and that may in any case not conform to USAWC’s avowed commitment to academic freedom. In these circumstances it is not surprising that Professor Zuhur believes that her employment contract at USAWC is not being renewed because of her views and beliefs, rather than because of her job performance.

Professor Zuhur should not be made to feel that she is being subjected to an atmosphere of harassment and intimidation that makes it impossible for her to do her job properly and that denies USAWC students and faculty, and the wider public, the full benefit of her expertise. I therefore urge you to investigate Professor Zuhur’s complaints and ensure that all USAWC personnel comply fully and consistently with its policies on academic freedom and on prior review of publications and public remarks by faculty.

Sincerely,

Mervat F. Hatem
MESA President
Professor of Political Science, Howard University

cc: Sherifa Zuhur

June 3, 2008
Meir Sheetrit
Minister of Interior of Israel
2 Kaplan Street, Kiryat Ben-Gurion
Israel

via fax 011-972-2-670-1628

Dear Minister Sheetrit:

I write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our grave concern regarding your decision on 23 May 2008 to deny Professor Norman Finkelstein entry into Israel on what appears to be retribution for his critical academic examination of Israeli government policy, including the ongoing occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. We urge you to reverse this decision, which represents a serious threat to future scholarship and academic freedom.

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 2800 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.

Professor Finkelstein, a US citizen, is a well-known scholar who has published extensively with the top academic presses in his field. In the early morning of 23 May 2008, he arrived at Ben Gurion airport en route to friends in the West Bank city of Hebron. Over the next 24 hours the professor was detained, questioned by Shin Bet officials, and finally forced to board a plane bound for the United States.  Upon his deportation, the authorities informed him that for “security” reasons he would be barred from entering Israel (and the Occupied Territories) for at least ten years, and that he should contact the Ministry of Interior should he wish to inquire about the precise reason for the ban issued against him. Since then, however, government officials have offered two different explanations for their decision. The first, reported by Ha’aretz, was ‘suspicions involving hostile elements in Lebanon,’ referring to Professor Finkelstein’s well-publicized meetings with Hizbullah officials in Lebanon in January 2008. The second reason, reported in the Jerusalem Post, was the professor’s ‘outspoken anti-Zionist opinions and for his harsh criticisms of Israel.”

We understand that Israeli law allows you to deny entry to any non-citizen you choose. But the absence of a consistent explanation, and one that may even constitute punishment for a professional scholarly critique, is troubling on several grounds.  First, you have failed to explain how Professor Finkelstein poses an actual threat to state security as a result of his meetings with Hizbullah officials.  The timing of your decision raises a second concern. According to Professor Finkelstein, this is the first time in 20 years (and at least 16 visits) that he has had trouble entering the country. His most recent book, Beyond Chutzpah (University of California Press, 2007), investigates Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories, focusing in particular on Israel’s human rights record since 1967. The unprecedented nature of his deportation can easily lead people to wonder whether there is a connection between your decision and the analysis presented in this book.

If you have evidence that Professor Finkelstein poses a security risk to the State of Israel, we urge you to make it available so as to reassure the Israeli public—who are accustomed to open debates about the state of their country—that untoward political pressures did not affect your decision.  We also ask that you clarify whether you intend to uphold the 10-year ban against Professor Finkelstein: what would happen to him should he attempt to visit Israel before 2018?

Denying qualified scholars entry into the country because of their political beliefs strikes at the core of academic freedom. This is why we write to protest the barring of Professor Finkelstein and to request that the Israeli government reverse the action immediately.

Finally, we would like to request clarification from the Ministry about the implications of your decision regarding Professor Finkelstein for the membership of the Middle East Studies Association. Can MESA members, who may or may not oppose various aspects of Israeli government policy, expect similar treatment when entering your country?

Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Mervat F. Hatem
MESA President
Professor of Political Science, Howard University

cc:    The Honorable Condoleeza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State
        Ambassador Richard H. Jones, U.S. Ambassador to Israel
        Ambassador Daniel Ayalon, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S.

June 2, 2008

The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
Secretary of State
Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Re: Prevention of students from Gaza from studying abroad

Dear Secretary Rice,

We are writing on behalf of Human Rights Watch, the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, and the Committee for Human Rights of the American Anthropological Association to welcome the State Department's decision to reinstate the Fulbright grants that had been awarded for the coming academic year to Palestinian students living in the Gaza Strip. We appreciated in particular your own objection to the department’s earlier decision to “redirect” the awards because of Israel’s blanket refusal to allow students in Gaza to travel abroad, or to the West Bank, to continue their education.

We remain concerned, however, about the sequence of decisions and the official statements that accompanied them. According to The New York Times, seven Palestinian students received letters on May 29, 2008, informing them that the grants awarded to them earlier for study in the United States had been “redirected” because Israeli authorities refused them permission to leave the Gaza Strip. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said that because the students “could not get visas,” the State Department decided to transfer the awards to students in the West Bank “rather than lose them for this year.”

On May 30, following disclosure of the State Department’s actions, department spokesman Casey said that US officials “have been actively speaking to Israeli officials here in Washington” and “noted the secretary’s personal concern about this issue.” When queried further, Casey said, “I think the conversations that have been held today indicated that the Israelis appreciated and understood our concerns about this issue.”

These statements, and the June 1 decision to reinstate the grants, do not explain why the State Department, over strenuous objections from the Fulbright program, “redirected” them in the first place. This action displayed a disturbing readiness on the part of the United States to actively support Israel’s policy of strict closure on the Gaza Strip, a policy that has caused grave harm to the population there and constitutes collective punishment, a serious violation of international law. Rather than accommodate Israel’s unlawful restrictions, the United States should vigorously challenge them at every opportunity.

We also want to call your attention to the fact that Israel’s refusal to allow students to resume or begin university studies outside of Gaza has affected many more students than these Fulbright awardees. We urge you to take this opportunity to call on Israel to allow all students in Gaza, except where there are legitimate security concerns specific to particular individuals, to exercise their right to freedom of movement and access to education. At a minimum, the United States should clearly and publicly disassociate itself from Israel’s policy of collective punishment as it affects students seeking to study abroad.

Both Human Rights Watch and the Middle East Studies Association have over the past year called on Israel to remove blanket restrictions that have prevented hundreds of Palestinian students from leaving the Gaza Strip to study abroad. In November 2007, Human Rights Watch called on Israel to cease its arbitrary denial of exit permits to some 670 students in Gaza from pursuing higher studies abroad. The Middle East Studies Association also raised this matter in letters to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. By late 2007, the number of students and dependents in Gaza seeking to study abroad had risen to approximately 1,100. Israel allowed fewer than half of those to leave Gaza for Egypt and Jordan for exit to third countries, and hundreds remained cut off from the possibility of studying abroad. According to the Israeli human rights organization Gisha, the Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, between one and two thousand students in Gaza seek to leave to study abroad each year, but since January 13 of this year none had been permitted to do so. Israel has also insisted that the Rafah crossing on Gaza’s border with Egypt remain closed; during the several days in late January when the border was breached, Egypt allowed only persons who already had visas to third countries to proceed to Cairo.

Gaza’s students need to have access to higher education abroad. Opportunities in the Gaza Strip are currently quite limited. Many degrees are not at all available in the four universities there. For instance, there are no undergraduate degrees in languages other than Arabic, English, and French, and no master’s degrees in law, journalism, and information technology. Doctoral degrees are not offered at all. Israel rarely permits professors and lecturers from outside Gaza to enter to teach there.

Israel’s restrictions on Gaza students seeking to study abroad are part of its more comprehensive and increasingly severe policy of closure. Since June 2007 Israel has enforced a strict blockade of the Gaza Strip, preventing, with very few exceptions, people and goods from entering or leaving the territory. Israeli officials say that the strict closure policy is intended to suppress rocket and other attacks by Palestinian armed groups, many of which hit civilian areas in Israel in violation of the international humanitarian law prohibition of attacks that target or cause indiscriminate harm to civilians. The strict closure’s impact on the ability of the armed groups to carry out these attacks is highly debatable. What is clear is that the policy has had a grave impact on the access of Gaza’s civilian population to essential goods and services, including education, and violates Israel’s obligation under the Fourth Geneva Convention on occupations to protect the rights of Palestinians to, among other things, freedom of movement and to secure access to education.

International humanitarian law and human rights law permits restrictions on freedom of movement for security reasons, but the restrictions must have a clear legal basis, be limited to what is necessary, and be proportionate to the threat. Israeli restrictions clearly exceed these norms, and constitute collective punishment, a serious violation of international law.

With this in mind, we strongly urge you to use this opportunity to call on Israel to cease those restrictions on the movement of people and goods into and out of the Gaza Strip that constitute collective punishment, including restrictions that prevent Gaza residents from studying abroad, and to disassociate the United States from any inference of support for those policies.

Sincerely,

Sarah Leah Whitson
Executive Director
Middle East and North Africa division
Human Rights Watch

Amy Newhall
Executive Director
Middle East Studies Association of North America

Setha Low
President
American Anthropological Association

May 30, 2008

HRH Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud
Minister of Interior
Ministry of Interior
PO Box 2933
Riyadh 11134
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

via fax 011-966-1-403-1185

Your Highness:

I write to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our deep concern over the arrest and detention of Professor Matrook Al-Faleh of the Department of Political Science at King Saud University.  Professor Al-Faleh was taken some time after leaving his house on May 19, 2008.  His family and associates report that his arrest has not been explained, nor have they been informed of any charges against him.  Professor Al-Faleh has been arrested and tried in the past for expressing his political opinions and advocating reforms in Saudi Arabia, though he was finally pardoned. 

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) was founded in1966 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 2800 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's Committee on Academic Freedom takes particular interest in Professor Al-Faleh's case because he was awarded MESA's academic freedom award in November 2004.  At that time, MESA cited him for “his courageous and principled stance” and further proclaimed that “he and his colleagues have made a brave stand in favor of freedom of speech and academic freedom, and they deserve our support and our admiration.”

We urge you to accord Professor Al-Faleh his full rights to express himself both politically and academically-the same rights that he advocates so forcefully for others.  We also ask, on behalf of our organization, that you ensure that Professor Al-Faleh be granted access to a lawyer, be released promptly or be charged with a criminal offense, and if he is charged, that he be tried before a court that meets international fair trial standards.  
 
We look forward to your response.

Respectfully,

Mervat Hatem
MESA President
Professor of Political Science, Howard University

cc: His Excellency Adel A. Al-Jubeir, Saudi Ambassador to the United States
King Saud University, Department of Political Science

May 27, 2008

Prime Minister Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan
Office of the Prime Minister
Başbakanlık
06573 Ankara
Turkey

Via facsimile +90 312 417 0476

Dear Prime Minister Erdoğan:

I write to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF)in order to express our alarm and grave concern over the forced resignation of Professor Donald Quataert from Chairmanship of the board of governors of the Institute of Turkish Studies (ITS), a not-for-profit educational foundation which overseas the distribution of the proceeds from a $3 million endowment by the Turkish government to support Turkish studies in the United States. Dr. Quataert, an eminent scholar in the field of Ottoman and Turkish studies, is professor of history at Binghamton University, State University of New York and served as Chairman of the ITS board of governors from 2001 until December 13, 2006.

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 2800 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 matter of the Turkish government’s interference in the academic freedom of one of our most respected academic colleagues was publicly raised at the annual business meeting of the Turkish Studies Association (TSA) held in Montréal in November 2007 in conjunction with MESA’s annual conference. TSA was founded in 1971 to promote high standards of scholarship and instruction in Turkish and Ottoman studies.  The Association publishes the scholarly Turkish Studies Association Journal, and has more than 500 members internationally. In addition to the Turkish Studies Association Journal, the Association’s activities include sponsorship of Turkish language prizes, awards for scholarly books and articles, graduate papers, and research scholarships. TSA members at the November business meeting were scandalized by the news of Professor Quataert’s mistreatment at the hands of the Institute of Turkish Studies and asked the TSA board to initiate action.  The TSA Board referred the case to CAF and expressed backing for its response.

Dr. Quataert’s relinquishment of his position came after he refused to accede to the request of ITS’s honorary chairman, Ambassador Nebi Şensoy, that he issue a retraction of a scholarly book review he wrote about the killings of Armenians (1915-1918) in the Ottoman Empire.  In that article, Professor Quataert urged academicians in Ottoman and Turkish studies to eschew polemical biases and undertake research based on the use of Ottoman-language source materials and produce scholarship according to the highest professional standards.  It is indisputable that most of the scholarship to date fails to adhere to these standards and as such serves neither the field of Ottoman-Turkish studies nor the interests of the Republic of Turkey and its citizens.

We are enormously concerned that unnamed high officials in Ankara felt it was inappropriate for Professor Quataert to continue as chairman of the board of governors and threatened to revoke the funding for the ITS if he did not publicly retract statements made in his review or separate himself from the Chairmanship of the ITS.  The ITS mission statement declares that it is “an independent, tax exempt organization and does not seek to influence legislation nor advocate particular policies or agendas.” The reputation and integrity of the ITS as a non-political institution funding scholarly projects that meet stringent academic criteria is blackened when there is government interference in and blatant disregard for the principle of academic freedom.  A clear message is sent to those who would apply for ITS funds or participate in ITS activities that the board does not stand behind the principle of academic freedom, and that politics can vitiate professional standards.  It would be a travesty for an association that seeks to provide a more positive image of Turkey and promote the development of Turkish studies in the United States to be viewed in such a counterproductive and negative light. Furthermore the attitude towards Dr. Quataert, sharply contrasts with your government’s recent call to leave the debate regarding the events of 1915 to the independent study and judgment of scholars.

We ask that your government take all necessary steps to press for Professor Quataert’s reinstatement as chairman of the board of governors of ITS, and that the funds for the ITS endowment be placed in an irrevocable trust immune from political interference and infringement of academic freedom.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.  We look forward to your positive response.

Sincerely,

Mervat Hatem
MESA President

cc:
Amb. Nabi Şensoy, ITS Honorary Chairman and Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors, Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey to the US
Amb. W. Robert Pearson, ret., Chairman
David C. Cuthell, ITS Executive Director
Walter Denny, ITS Secretary-Treasurer, Professor of Art History, University of Massachusetts

ITS MEMBERS OF THE BOARD
Halil Inalcik, Professor of History, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey and Professor Emeritus of History, The University of Chicago
Heath W. Lowry, Ataturk Professor of Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies, Princeton University
Justin McCarthy, Professor of History, University of Louisville
Mike M. Mustafoğlu, Trans Global Financial Corporation
Dr. Kenan Şahin, TIAX LL Corporation
Jenny B. White, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Boston University
Birol Yeşilada, Professor of Political Science, Portland State University

ITS ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Sarah G. Moment Atis, Professor of Turkish Language and Literature; Chair, Middle East Studies Program, University of Wisconsin at Madison
Carter V. Findley, Professor of History, Ohio State University
Fatma Müge Göçek, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan
Avigdor Levy, Professor of History, Brandeis University
Gülru Necipoğlu-Kafadar, Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Art, Harvard University
Sylvia Önder, Visiting Assistant Professor of Turkish, Georgetown University
Esra Özyurek, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California, San Diego
Leslie Peirce, Professor of History, New York University
Kemal Silay, Professor of Central Eurasian Studies; Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies Chair Professor; Director, Turkish Studies Program, Indiana University

President John J. DeGioia, Georgetown University
Andras J. Riedlmayer, TSA President; Bibliographer in Islamic Art and Architecture, Aga Khan Program in Islamic Architecture at Harvard University
Donald Quataert, Professor, Binghamton University, SUNY

Reply from Nabi Şensoy
Embassy of Turkey
Washington, DC

June 30, 2008
Professor Mervat Hatem
President
Middle East Studies Association
Tucson, Arizona

Dear Professor Hatem,
With your letter addressed to H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, dated May 27, 2008, you insinuate that I, as the Honorary Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Institute of Turkish Studies (ITS), may have improperly influenced Professor Donald Quataert to resign from the board’s Chair on December 13, 2006. I regret to observe that you apparently felt no need to consult or contact me before writing this letter, which would have permitted me to correct some of your grave misperceptions. The quantity of half truths contained in your letter also suggests that the ITS Board of Governors had not been contacted either.

I provide the following corrections so that you can fully appreciate whether allusions to any influence I may have exerted over Prof. Quataert to urge his resignation from the ITS board’s Chair and from the board itself are substantiated or not.

The ITS was founded in 1983.Accodring to its By-Laws, the primary objective of the Institute is to increase knowledge of Turkey, its people, culture and history among the people of the United States by supporting educational research, scholarship and publications in the field of Turkish studies. The efforts and works of the ITS have positively contributed to the development of relations between Turkey and the United States primarily in the academic field.

The ITS’s affairs are managed by its Board of Governors. The Board of Governors is composed of Turkish and American academics and businessmen known for their expertise in their fields. The Board of Governors meets periodically and acts by a simple majority. All decisions, including electing of the chairman are taken by the Board accordingly. As befits a purely academic institution, the ITS and its Board of Governors seek to operate transparently and objectively. It would be a clear violation of academic freedom for the Turkish Government to seek to influence members of the board to act in a certain way, and equally for members of the Board to bow to such pressure.
As the Honorary Chairman of the ITS Board, my one and only right is to attend the meetings of the Board of Governors and to offer, if need be, my views on matters related to its governance. I lack the prerogative to vote and have no authority to appoint or remove any board member or approve or reject any grant requests.

Contrary to recent assertions, I did not call Prof. Quataert to condemn him for a book review he had written in which he opined on the events of 1915. Rather, following the publication of that book review I called Prof. Quataert to enquire into the reason for his change of opinion on that historical dispute, as Mr. Quataert had previously not considered that the events of 1915 constituted genocide. Prof. Quataert replied that the book review was being misunderstood and that his opinion had not changed. I then suggested to Prof. Quataert that if he was being misunderstood, that he should naturally correct this misunderstanding in writing. I expressly added that whatever decision Prof. Quataert would make, both on correcting the misunderstanding and on his interpretation of history, I would respect it. Professor Quataert did not act on my suggestion.
I add that, contrary to what has been claimed, during my conversation with Prof. Quataert, absolutely no mention either of the ITS’ funding or of the subject of Prof. Quataert’s continued service on the ITS board was made.

With  a letter dated December 13, 2006, the then Chairman of the Board of Directors, Prof. Donald Quataert informed the members of the Board of Governors, including me as Honorary Chairman, of his decision to resign from the ITS Chairmanship.

With the attached copy of the letter addressed to Prof. Quataert, dated January 13, 2007, I expressed my regret regarding his decision, underlined his important contributions to the ITS and mentioned my sincere wish to maintain our close friendship in the future.

Following Prof. Quataert’s resignation, Mr Kenan Sahin, a prominent Turkish –American academic and businessman, and then Ambassador Robert Pearson, a former US Ambassador to Turkey, were elected to Chair the ITS by the Board of Governors. Any future Chairman will be independently by the Board as well.

It I obvious that claims contained in your letter insinuating that my actions had forced Professor Quataert to resign from the Chair of the ITS are not only unfounded and misleading, but they also run contrary to the facts. Neither the Turkish government nor I have ever placed any pressure upon the ITS, for such interference would violate the principle of academic freedom, which we earnestly uphold. The Turkish Government and I will be the first to defend ITS from any such pressure. Our past practice stands in testimony to this fact.

I hope this helps you gain a better understanding of the matter.

Finally, as you have published Prof. Quataert’s letter on your website, fairness would demand that my letter also be given an equal public forum.

Sincerely,
Nabi Şensoy

Copy of letter from Nabi Sensoy to Pr. Donald Quataert

January 18, 2007

Professor Donald Quataert
Department of History
Binghamton University
State University of New York

Dear Professor,
Thank you for your letter of December 13, 2006.
I am sorry to learn about your decision to resign as Chairman of the Board of Governors and as Member of the Board of Governors of the Institute of Turkish Studies.

It is indeed very hard on us to lose a distinguished member of the TIS who has been a major intellectual force in support of a better understanding of Turkey.

I believe that the Institute, under your chairmanship has played an important role and maintained its position as a distinguished institution.
Your friendship over the years has been a great asset. It will be an honor to maintain this close friendship.

I look forward to welcoming you here at the Turkish Embassy on future occasions.
With my best wishes, I remain.

Yours sincerely,
Nabi Şensoy

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 Commission has imposed a substantial burden on these programs and individuals. It is incumbent on the Commission to relieve this burden. We therefore call upon the Commission to clarify its definition of anti-Semitism by more effectively distinguishing it from criticism of Israel or of Zionism, and to state publicly that the allegations and insinuations contained in the briefing report and findings concerning Middle East studies programs and faculty are unsubstantiated by evidence and do not reflect the views of the Commission.

Sincerely,
Zachary Lockman
President

cc:        Abigail Thernstrom, Vice Chair
            Kenneth L. Marcus, Staff Director
            Jennifer C. Braceras, Commissioner
            Peter N. Kirsanow, Commissioner
            Arlan D. Melendez, Commissioner
            Ashley L. Taylor, Jr., Commissioner
            Michael Yaki, Commissioner

Dear Prime Minister Olmert, Minister Peretz, President Bush, Secretary Rice,
Mr. Ambassador Jones, and Mr. Abrams:

I write to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) in order to express our grave concern about the broad assault on the education system in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The current academic crisis is the result of numerous factors, including Israel’s military bombing campaigns and incursions in the Palestinian territories. Direct attacks on educational institutions, the denial of free access to schools through the operation of military checkpoints, and the isolation of Palestinian universities through Israeli immigration restrictions on faculty, researchers, and students with foreign passports have severely disrupted education at the primary, secondary, and university levels. The impact of international sanctions against the Hamas-led government is further crippling the Palestinian education system by rendering the Palestinian Authority unable to pay teachers’ salaries with any consistency, parents unable to afford tuition and other fees, and universities unable to provide scholarships to those in need of financial assistance.

Our organization is aware of the violent strife among Palestinian factions in Gaza that have also had a detrimental effect on educational institutions and personnel, and we have publicly expressed our concerns to Palestinian leaders about that fact. We are also aware of the rocket attacks from Gaza on Israeli civilian targets in the past three weeks, but Israeli responses must not violate international law. Moreover, Israel, as the occupying power, and the United States, Israel’s primary financial and political backer, bear responsibility for ensuring the Right to Education as enshrined in The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which Israel ratified in 1991. We urge you to take immediate measures to ensure the continuing operation of the educational process at all levels.

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.

The latest disruption to the Palestinian education system took place on 24 May 2007, when Israeli forces abducted Dr. Nasser Eddin al-Shaer, Minister of Education, along with 32 prominent political and community figures. On Israel’s Army Radio, Defense Minister Peretz stated that the recent detentions are intended to pressure Hamas’s armed wing to stop the firing of Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel. However, regardless of official justifications for the arrest, Dr. al-Shaer’s detention without charge or trial clearly contravenes international and human rights laws. In a separate raid on 24 May, the army also vandalized a local school in Hebron, confiscating computers and teaching materials.

These recent events are just a few of the incidents exemplifying a disturbing trend in Israel’s occupation policies, which have hindered the academic freedom of 1.2 million students in the occupied Palestinian territories (who constitute 32 percent of the total population), and obstructed the work of 10,000 teachers and educational staff. Since the start of the Intifada in September 2000, the Israeli army has partially or fully destroyed 73 schools in Gaza, including a teachers’ training college in 2004, and it has shelled or raided eight out of eleven universities in the West Bank.

The ongoing disruption to Palestinian education constitutes a violation of a basic human right that will have long-term political, economic, and humanitarian consequences for all peoples involved. It also does further damage to the reputation of Israel and the United States, and presents an additional obstacle in the already obstructed path toward a peaceful resolution to this conflict. We call on the Israeli and United States governments to take all measures necessary to remove those physical, military, and political barriers that they have placed in the way of Palestine’s educational system.

Sincerely,
Zachary Lockman
President

cc: President Mahmoud Abbas
      Palestinian National Authority
      Fax: +972-08-282-5856
              +972-2-296-3170
      Colonel Muhammad Dahlan
      Head of Preventive Security Service
      Fax: +972-7-825-425
+972-2-561-9112

August 9, 2007

Mr. Zachary Lockman, President

Dear Mr. Lockman,

On behalf of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, we acknowledge receipt of your letter dated May 6, 2007, the contents of which have been noted.

The State of Israel, through the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, makes every effort to allow Palestinian students in Judea & Samaria to study regularly and with no interruptions. To this end, the Civil Administration in Judea & Samaria employs a special coordinator whose exclusive task if to assist the Palestinians in maintaining a regular school routine, despite the harsh security reality in the area–a reality which compels the IDF to continue its security activity in Palestinian cities and establish checkpoints for the purpose of preventing terror attacks.

Israel provides freedom of movement for Palestinian teachers at checkpoints throughout Judea & Samaria, and continues to issue entry permits for Palestinian teachers working in Arab schools in east Jerusalem. During 2006 almost 6,600 free movement permits in Judea & Samaria were issues for teaches, inspectors, examiners, members of the Palestinian Ministry of Education, and employees of the education system. Moreover, 98 special permits were issued recently for education personnel in east Jerusalem in order to allow them to arrive daily at the center for the evaluation of matriculation exams in the city of Bethlehem. Special representatives of the civil Administration and the Coordination and Liaison Offices in Judea & Samaria were stationed at checkpoints in order to ensure regular freedom of movement for Palestinians in general, and teachers and students in particular. Israel also allowed for the regular transfer of textbooks and other teaching materials to all school throughout Judea & Samaria. Operating on the principle that all human beings have the right to education, the State of Israel, through the education coordinator of the Civil Administration, even authorized the entry of textbooks for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Israel also ensured that matriculation and other exams in Judaea & Samaria would take place on time, including in east Jerusalem and among Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. To this end, we made certain that the exam forms would be transferred unhindered through the checkpoints, along with thousands of inspectors, examiners and other employees of the Palestinian Education & Culture Ministry, and tat the exam notebooks would be returned to the various examination center in Judea and Samaria. Official data show that over 34,000 Palestinian students took their matriculation exams this year.

IDF forces in Judea & Samaria did not bomb or demolish a single school, university or educational institute. Apart from instances in which there is an urgent security need, they refrain from even entering Palestinian education institutes. It my be worth noting that this principle is upheld despite the fact that Palestinian education institutes are often cynically used by terrorist organizations for the spreading of hatred and incitement against Israel, the storage of weaponry and the launching of terrorist attacks against IFDF soldiers and innocent Israelis.

The key to ensuring complete freedom of movement for Palestinians in general, and students in particular, lies in the hands of the Palestinians and their leaders. The IDF makes every effort to uphold freedom of education, but its primary responsibility is for the security and safety of the State of Israel and its citizens. Only when the Palestinian radicals place education above terrorism on their list of priorities will there be real change.

Sincerely,

(Ms.) Einat Gluska
Assistant Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister

We write to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and The Committee for Academic and Intellectual Freedom of the International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS).

Both of our organizations are deeply concerned by the recent arrests in Iran of the respected Iranian-American academics, Dr. Haleh Esfandiari and Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh.

Based on numerous reports, Dr. Esfandiari and Dr. Tajbakhsh were detained by Iranian security forces on May 8 and May 11, respectively. As of this date, your government has released very few details regarding the circumstances of their detention. We are particularly concerned that Dr. Esfandiari and Dr. Tajbakhsh are being mistreated while in custody and are being pressured by prison and intelligence ministry officials to make false confessions. We urge you to take immediate steps to guarantee their physical well-being, grant them their right to confer with legal counsel, and allow them to leave Iran whenever they choose.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America and the International Society for Iranian Studies are the preeminent international organizations in their respective fields. MESA, founded in 1966, and ISIS, founded in 1967, were established to promote scholarship and teaching on Iran, the Middle East, and North Africa. MESA publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2700 members worldwide; ISIS publishes the international journal, Iranian Studies and has more than 500 members worldwide. Both organizations are committed to ensuring academic freedom, the free exchange of ideas, and freedom of expression in all its forms, both within Iran and the Middle East and in connection with the study of Iran and the Middle East in North America and elsewhere.

Official statements made by your government regarding the case of Dr. Esfandiari and Dr. Tajbakhsh use vaguely worded allegations of “espionage.” MESA and ISIS vehemently reject these unfounded allegations. Our colleagues’ activities have consistently remained firmly within the strict boundaries of transparent and legitimate academic and policy research. These arrests are all the more troubling as they indicate a calculated policy by Iranian authorities of targeting academics of dual Iranian-US citizenship. MESA and ISIS are independent, nonpolitical international academic organizations that steer clear of the government-level diplomatic disputes between Washington and Tehran. We condemn the targeting of our colleagues on grounds of their having US citizenship. The various unsubstantiated allegations made by certain quarters in Iran against Dr. Esfandiari’s work at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC, and Dr. Tajbakhsh’s connection with various international and American think-tanks since his return to Iran in 2000–the latter with the full knowledge and cooperation of Iranian authorities and directed toward humanitarian relief aid and urban planning–are considered by our academic organizations as unjustified assaults against the basic principles of academic and intellectual freedom.

We also feel compelled to remind you, Your Excellency, that the rights of individuals to freedom of thought, opinion, and speech are explicitly protected under the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Article 23), as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Articles 18, 19, and 21), to which the Islamic Republic of Iran is also a state party. The arbitrary arrests of Dr. Esfandiari and Dr. Tajbakhsh further harm the reputation of Iran as a country where scholarly research and inquiry are highly valued. These arrests can only be conceived as a direct attack on the principles of academic freedom, critical intellectual inquiry, and research.

Your Excellency, we trust that you will appreciate the seriousness of this matter and will take the appropriate measures. We urge you to secure our colleagues’ immediate release.

Yours Respectfully,
Zachary Lockman
MESA President

and

Nasrin Rahimieh
ISIS 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

Mr. Mohammad Hassan Zia'i-Far
Secretary of the Islamic Human Rights Commission
Fax: +44 20 8904-5183
E-mail: info@ihrc.org

Dear Dr. Touqan:

We are writing on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to express our deep concern about the dismissal of sixteen university professors from Al-Zarqa al-Ahliyyah University for political reasons unrelated to their academic performance.

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 reports in Al-Sharq al-Awsat and Al-Jazirah of 12 May 2007, informed sources in the Al-Zarqa al-Ahliyyah University president’s office indicated that security instructions from outside the university–-not work-related concerns–-triggered the decision not to renew the contracts of the sixteen professors, ten of whom are members of the Islamic Action Front (IAF). Indeed, although Al-Zarqa al-Ahliyyah is a private institution, the decision, which amounts to the dismissal of these faculty members, appears to be part of a larger set of on-going confrontations between the government of the Hashemite Kingdom and members of the IAF.

We have learned that the National Center for Human Rights and the Arab World Center for Democracy and Human Rights have previously received complaints regarding obstacles to the employment or the non-renewal of contracts of IAF members based on directives from the General Intelligence Department. Many of these complaints were from Ph.D. holders who had applied to Jordanian universities.

Chapter 2 of the Jordanian Constitution ensures equality of opportunity through employment to all Jordanians, just as it protects freedom of opinion. Moreover, in 2006, the Government published five international Human Rights-related instruments in Al-Jaridah al-Rasmiyyah, rendering the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), part and parcel of the Jordanian legal system. In the ICCPR, article 19 guarantees freedom of expression, article 22 protects the right to freedom of association, and article 25 stipulates equality before the law in matters of political or other opinion. The ICESCR recognizes the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favorable conditions of work.

Academic freedom, which is the foundation of a strong and vibrant educational environment, requires that faculty members be evaluated on the basis of their scholarship and teaching. Their membership in legal political bodies or organizations should play no role in decisions made about their hiring or dismissal.

As a committee of MESA charged with monitoring infringements on academic freedom, the Committee on Academic Freedom is deeply concerned by these developments. We urge you to reverse the non-reappointment decision and ensure that no further actions are taken against faculty members who have fulfilled their academic contractual obligations and who violated no laws through membership in legal political parties.

Sincerely,
Zachary Lockman
President

cc: Dr. Adnan Nayifeh
President, Jam´at Al-Zarqa Al-Ahliyyah University
Fax: +962-5-382-1120

His Royal Highness Prince Zeid Ra´ad Al-Hussein
Ambassador of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to the United States
Fax: 202-966-3110

Dr. Marouf al-Bakhit
Prime Minister and Minister of Defense
Fax: 202-464-2520

Major General Muhammad Dahabi
Director of the General Intelligence Department
Fax: +962-6-586-4111

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.

The Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) of MESA has written to President Ahmedinejad calling for the release of Dr. Haleh Esfandiari and has been closely monitoring the actions of the Iranian government. CAF notes with alarm the growing number of scholars and researchers in recent weeks, among them Kian Tajbakhsh, who, like Dr. Esfandiari, have been harassed, detained, and subject to defamatory campaigns.

It is unprecedented in the history of this organization to issue a statement of concern; however, CAF feels compelled to bring the emerging pattern of grave infringements on academic freedom, scholarly research, and intellectual exchange to the full attention of MESA members and other scholars who may be contemplating travel to Iran.

Your Excellency,
I write on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to protest the continuing campaign of harassment, expulsion, and arrest of students at Amir Kabir University of Technology in Tehran. Most recently six student journalists were arrested in early May in connection with articles published in student publications in late April. The six students—Ahmad Qasabian, Moqdad Khalilpour, Pooya Mahmoudian, Majid Tavakkoli, Babak Zamanian, and Majid Sheikhpour—are believed held in Evin Prison. As of this date none of the students has 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 offense.

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 student editors were summoned to a Revolutionary Court on May 3rd, 7th, and 8th following the publication in student magazines of articles deemed by university officials to “insult Islamic sanctities.” The offending articles include one in which the doctrine of religious infallibility is questioned and another in which the recent crackdown on modern female clothing is challenged. The issues raised in these articles clearly fall within the parameters of debate common to universities and are therefore clearly protected by universal standards of academic freedom. Press accounts have also reported that following the publication of the offending articles members of the Basij militia entered the campus and physically attacked students associated with the campus publications. In several documented cases students associated with the campus publications were hospitalized with critical injuries.

As you are no doubt aware, Your Excellency, the Basij militia is organized under the authority of the Revolutionary Guard, which in turn is under your direct command. Your government’s encouragement of the Basij militia to enter the campus and confront the student journalists is tantamount to an incitement of violence against those holding views you deem unacceptable. This contravenes one of the most basic principles of academic freedom, the maintenance of university campuses as sites promoting the open exchange of ideas free from harassment and violence.

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 (Articles 2 and 3). Further, your government’s actions are in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Articles 18, 19, 21), to which the Islamic Republic of Iran is also a state party.

Your Excellency, the violence perpetrated against students associated with the campus publications at Amir Kabir University and the subsequent arrest of student editors does further damage to the reputation of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a country where students, academics, and intellectuals can engage in critical debate free from government intrusion. In fact, this case is just one example of a disturbing trend in your country’s university system.

As we have detailed in previous letters to your office (see letter of February 13, 2007, and letter of September 13, 2006), during the past year students and professors from numerous Iranian universities have been disciplined, fired, forcibly retired, expelled, and otherwise harassed on grounds that are clearly related to their political opinions and associations. This trend has also been documented by numerous international non-governmental organizations, including Human Rights Watch in its report of October 2006 titled “Denying the Right to Education" www.hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/iran1006).

We trust that you will appreciate the seriousness of this matter and will take the appropriate measures to release the six student journalists. We also ask that you initiate measures that will preserve the principles of academic freedom at Iranian universities. We look forward to your positive response.

Yours Respectfully,
Zachary Lockman
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

Prime Minister and Acting Interior Minister Ismail Haniya
Palestinian National Authority
Fax: 202-483-4430

Colonel Muhammad Dahlan
Head of Preventive Security Service
Fax: +11 972-7-825-425

Ambassador Afif Safieh
Representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization
Fax : 202-974-6278

Dear President Abbas, Colonel Dahlan, Minister Haniya, and Ambassador Safieh:

I write to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) to express our grave concern about what appears to be a series of systematic and brutal attacks on schools, libraries, and other educational facilities in Gaza. MESA has on numerous occasions protested to the government of Israel its policies of restricting access to education in Palestine. Our organization also is aware of the deteriorating economic and security situation in the Gaza strip to which Israeli actions and the US boycott policy are significant contributors. Even so, the Palestinian Authority and its security forces bear the primary responsibility for the protection of persons and educational institutions from attack by local assailants. We urge you to do everything you can 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.

According to press reports, the first of these attacks occurred on Saturday April 14, 2007, when the Al-Ataa, a cultural center in Beit Hanoun, was broken into and set on fire by unknown assailants. The attackers completely destroyed the computer room of the center, damaged $80,000 worth of equipment, and inflicted another $40,000 in damages to the building itself. The attackers also destroyed one of the center's libraries, containing about 5,000 books. Al-Ataa was originally sponsored by the Welfare Association in coordination with the World Bank. This center aims especially to serve local women and children. Among its many activities, it runs workshops on non-violence.

The second attack happened in the early hours of Sunday, April 15, 2007, when an explosive device was detonated at the entrance to the Christian Bible Society's store in the heart of Gaza City. Among the many activities of this organization, it provides language and computer training courses to Muslims as well as Christians.

The third attack on April 21, 2007, was carried out by masked gunmen. They bombed the American International School in the northern Gaza area, causing damage estimated at more than $200,000. This fee-charging school, which teaches in English and in Arabic, has 250 pupils, 50 of them on scholarships provided for students from poor families. The explosions destroyed administrative offices and the student cafeteria, and a classroom corridor was deliberately sprinkled with petrol and set afire. Also during the attack, the assailants handcuffed eight unarmed security guards and drove them half a kilometer from the school. Last year, unidentified gunmen kidnapped an Australian and a Dutch teacher who were later released unharmed. Since then all the foreign teachers have departed.

The most recent attack took place on May 6, 2007, when a large organized group ransacked the UNRWA-run Omariya Elementary School in Rafah. One person was killed and six others were wounded. The estimated 70 attackers mounted their assault during a celebration attended by the school's children and UNRWA and PA officials, including John Ging, the director of UNRWA operations in the Gaza strip. The attackers threw a number of hand grenades and opened fire with automatic rifles as participants prepared to leave the school premises. An UNRWA vehicle was hit as it left the scene, and five Palestinian journalists covering the event were beaten.

Attacks on educational facilities constitute a profound injury to the people and to the future of education in Gaza. We call on the PA’s national unity government to take all measures necessary to ensure law and order, and to provide security to all schools and humanitarian organizations that deliver vital educational services to the people of Gaza. We also urge that you investigate and prosecute where appropriate the groups and individuals responsible for these violent assaults.

Sincerely,
Zachary Lockman
MESA President

cc: General Karen Koning AbuZayd
UNRWA Commissioner
Fax: 202-483-9523

Your Excellency,

I am writing on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to express our dismay over the harassment and subsequent detention of Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Dr. Esfandiari was in Iran to visit her aging mother in December but was prevented from leaving the country and subsequently threatened, pressured, and repeatedly questioned by security authorities. Most recently, on May 8, 2007, she was arrested without charges and taken to Evin Prison.

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.

The confiscation of Dr. Esfandiari's travel documents and her subsequent harassment contravenes Iranian laws and Iran's international commitments which guarantee the right of entry and exit to Iranians and other nationals. Further, her detention violates the constitution of Iran, which 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 (Articles 2, 3). Further, your government's actions are in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Articles 18, 19, 21), to which the Islamic Republic of Iran is also a state party.

Harassment and detention of scholars is always cause for grave concern, but in this case it should be noted that the scholar in question is widely respected both for her knowledge and ability to provide clear and dispassionate analysis. Her treatment sends a chilling message to scholars throughout the world.

We feel it is urgent that you take steps immediately to explain the reasons for her sudden detention, grant her access to legal counsel and family members, and allow her to return to her family in the United States as quickly as possible.

Respectfully,
Zachary Lockman
President

cc: H.E. Dr. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Ambassador of Iran to the United Nations
Embassy of Pakistan, Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Dear President Mubarak:

We are writing on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom. We are deeply concerned about accounts of severe restrictions on student expression, including disciplinary hearings and suspensions, on several Egyptian university campuses. Accounts suggest such actions center on attempts to debate and discuss issues of political reform, particularly the recent amendments to the Egyptian constitution. We note with particular concern frequent accounts that 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.

Among the numerous recent cases that have been brought to our attention are the following:

• President of Mansoura University Magdy Abou Rayan suspended 33 students for one month as well as referring them to disciplinary tribunals, apparently for staging a skit titled “Congratulations to the Son” dealing with current events (al-Masry al-Yawm, March 26, 2007). Nine students from the Faculty of Commerce were suspended for one month, charged with distributing lecture notes without permission. A third case is the suspension of an engineering student for one year and the referral of 14 other students to a disciplinary tribunal, all charged with gathering donations in support of Palestinians.

• At Cairo University on April 22, the Dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine convened a disciplinary tribunal for 20 students, charging them with belonging to the Free Student Union.

• At Ain Shams University, 27 students were suspended for one month for participating in the Free Student Union elections (al-Masry al-Yawm, March 15, 2007).

• On February 21, 11 students at Tanta University were suspended for one semester after the conclusion of the Free Student Union elections.

• On April 15 at Menoufiyya University, students were arrested after announcing their intention to organize an annual end-of-year performance. On the same day, the Shebeen al-Kom prosecution charged 16 of the students with belonging to the Muslim Brothers and ordered them held for 15 days in the Shebeen General Prison.

The Egyptian Constitution itself includes explicit protection of academic freedoms. Article 47 states that “Freedom of expression is guaranteed, and every human being has the right to express his opinion and disseminate it orally or in writing or using imagery or any other means of expression within the bounds of law. Self-criticism and constructive criticism are guarantees for the soundness of the national structure.” Similarly, according to Article 18, “Education is a right guaranteed by the state, and it is mandatory at the primary phase. The state works to extend this to other phases, and supervises all of education, and guarantees the independence of universities and centers of scientific research.”

Moreover, Egyptian administrative courts have overturned university administration decisions. On April 8, the Court of the Administrative Judiciary reversed the decision by the administration of al-Azhar University suspending 32 students and barring them from sitting for final exams. On March 25, the same court reversed the decision by the Ain Shams University administration to suspend 12 students and ordered the university to pay all legal fees. The Court also compelled the president of Helwan University, Abdel Hayy Ebeid, to set a date for disciplinary hearings for 29 students suspended from Helwan University for organizing parallel student union elections.

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 take steps to ensure that those who engage in discussion and debate in an academic setting can do so without fear of punitive action. We also urge you to abide by administrative court rulings reversing suspension orders and reinstating students without penalty.

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: 202-244-4319

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. Hani Mohamed Gohar
Dean of the Faculty of
Veterinary Medicine
Cairo University
PO Box 12211
Giza, Egypt
Fax: +20 2 572-5240
vetdean@mailer.eun.edu

Dr. Abbas Ali al-Hifnawy
President
Menoufiyya University
Gamal Abdel Nasser Street
Shebeen al-Kom, Menoufiyya
Fax: + 20 2 575-2777
A.Hfnawy@mailer.menofia.edu.eg
President@mailer.menofia.edu.eg

Dr. Abdel Fattah Sadakah
President
Tanta University
Gaysh St.
Tanta, Gharbiyya
Fax: + 20 4 330-2785
sadakah@tanta.edu.eg

Dr. Ali Ahmed El-Abd
President
Ain Shams University
Abbassia, 11566
Fax: +20 2 684-7824
pres@asunet.shams.edu.eg

Your Majesty:

We are writing on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom. We are deeply concerned about arbitrary restrictions that the government, including the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Higher Education, has placed on a number of Saudi academics. These restrictions include preventing professors from teaching and meeting with students, banning publication and distribution of their work, denying them access to Saudi and regional media, and prohibiting them from traveling abroad for professional purposes.

It appears that these restrictions have been imposed because these academics have, in their writing and public comments, criticized government policies. The government’s response appears intended to punish these individuals for expressing their views, and to intimidate others who may be inclined to do the same. These restrictions clearly violate the internationally guaranteed right to freedom of expression and the right to impart and exchange information and ideas--the core elements of academic freedom. We therefore urge you to review these cases, take steps to remove these restrictions, and instruct the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Higher Education to cease policies that punish scholars solely for the peaceful expression of views critical of official policies and practices.

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.

The serious violations of academic freedom in Saudi Arabia that have come to our attention include the following:

• Dr. Matrouk al-Faleh, a professor of political science at King Saud University, is presently on sabbatical leave from his university post. His leave was approved by the university’s Academic Council, and he hoped to spend the academic year at the University of Washington, but Ministry of Interior orders have prevented him from traveling for that purpose.

• Dr. al-Faleh has continued to speak out publicly on the need for comprehensive political and constitutional reform in Saudi Arabia as well as reforms in the governance of Saudi universities. You met with Dr. al-Faleh in August 2005 after pardoning him following his conviction on trumped-up charges for calling publicly for a constitutional monarchy.

In 2004, while he was in detention, MESA chose Dr. al-Faleh for its annual Academic Freedom Defender Award and we continue to monitor his situation. The Ministry of Interior should immediately revoke the restrictions it has placed on Dr. al-Faleh’s travel and his ability to speak out publicly in the media.

• Dr. Abdullah al-Hamid, formerly on the teaching staff of Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University until his dismissal in the mid-1990s, is today a prominent public intellectual. He was among those convicted and subsequently pardoned along with Dr. al-Faleh for advocating peaceful political change. The Ministry of Interior has also prohibited his travel and his ability to express his views critically in Saudi media. We call on you to instruct the interior ministry officials to revoke the punitive restrictions they have placed on Dr. al- Hamid’s right to travel and to express his views publicly.

• Hassan al-Malki had been an instructor at the Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University and a consultant with the Ministry of Education until he was dismissed from both positions in 2002 as a result of his public advocacy of reforms in Saudi educational curricula. The government has also banned the sale and distribution of his books in Saudi Arabia. According to Dr. al-Malki, Ministry of Interior orders prohibit him from lecturing or writing in Saudi Arabia or traveling abroad as a result of his criticism of the policies and practices of the country’s religious establishment in particular. We urge you to ensure that the Ministry of Interior revokes its orders preventing Dr. al-Malki from teaching, writing, and traveling.

• Abd al-Rahman al-Hakimi was preparing his thesis for a Master of Arts degree and teaching at the Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University when he was dismissed from the university several years ago after he called publicly for greater tolerance of unorthodox views in Islam. According to Mr. al-Hakimi, no Saudi university has accepted his request to finish his degree. His dismissal and subsequent exclusion from any degree program appears to be in reprisal for his public advocacy of views critical of the Saudi religious establishment in particular. We urge you to take steps to ensure that no government ministries or public officials prevent Mr. al-Hakimi from resuming his higher studies and his ability to lecture.

• Dr. Tawfiq al-Qusayyir taught physics at King Saud University until he was forcibly retired in 1994. He was among those detained in early 2004 for calling publicly for a constitutional monarchy. He was released from detention on March 30, 2004 after signing a statement that he would refrain from further advocacy of political reform. However, he remains banned from traveling abroad solely as a result of his advocacy of peaceful political change.

Your Highness, we are familiar with additional cases of individual academics and public intellectuals who do not wish to be named publicly but who have suffered similar punitive restrictions for exercising their right to freedom of expression, the right to impart, receive, and exchange information, and the right to participate in public affairs. We strongly urge you to address the grievances of the individuals raised in this letter and to take steps to see that the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Higher Education, and other official bodies end policies of punishing those who peacefully advocate political change and end policies aimed at silencing and intimidating a whole group of Saudi citizens.

Sincerely,
Zachary Lockman
MESA President

cc: Prince Naif bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud
Minister of Interior
PO Box 2933
Riyadh 11134
Saudi Arabia
Fax: +966 1 403-1185

Dr. Khalid bin Muhammad Al-Anqari
Saudi Arabian Minister of Higher Education
Faisal Hospital Street
Riyadh 11153
Saudi Arabia
Fax: +966 1 441-9004

His Excellency Adel A. A-Jubeir
Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States
601 New Hampshire Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20037
Fax: 202-944-5983

Prince Turki al-Faisal
Head, King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies
PO Box 51049
Riyadh 11543
Saudi Arabia
Fax: +966 1 465-9993, sjameel@kff.com

Dear Father 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 regarding the tenure case of Professor Norman Finkelstein.

We fear that the generally accepted academic procedures which should have been used to evaluate Professor Finkelstein’s scholarship, and thus his qualifications for promotion to tenure, may have been unduly politicized. We are particularly concerned that Professor Finkelstein has apparently been subjected to a campaign waged by an influential senior scholar outside his field from another university, which is designed to undermine his candidacy for tenure, on ideological rather than scholarly grounds.

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 recognize that some people may regard Professor Finkelstein’s scholarship as controversial. He has certainly engaged in some of the most charged debates about the history and historiography of the Arab-Israeli conflict and other topics. In the context of Professor Finkelstein’s interventions in these debates he has had several highly publicized exchanges with Professor Alan Dershowitz of the Harvard University Law School, whose book The Case for Israel (Wiley, 2003) Professor Finkelstein has subjected to scathing criticism on a variety of grounds. According to Inside Higher Ed as well as a widely disseminated report by Professor Jon Wiener in The Nation, Professor Dershowitz went to extraordinary lengths to prevent the publication of Professor Finkelstein’s critique Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of AntiSemitism and the Abuse of History (University of California Press, 2004). Those reports indicate that Professor Dershowitz authorized what Professor Wiener described as “threatening letters” to the counsel, to the university regents, to the university provost, to seventeen directors of the press and to nineteen members of the press's faculty editorial committee. Professor Dershowitz also appealed to the governor of California to stop the publication of the book. Fortunately, both the University of California Press and the governor’s office defended the principle of academic freedom in this case and refused to stop the publication of Professor Finkelstein’s book.

According to a Chronicle of Higher Education story dated 5 April 2007, Professor Dershowitz has admitted to sending a dossier critical of Professor Finkelstein to members of DePaul’s Law School and of its political science department. We regard this blatant and entirely unsolicited intervention in a tenure case by a very well-known faculty member from a different university as unacceptable. We fear that it may have unduly politicized and/or prejudiced your university’s consideration of Professor Finkelstein’s candidacy for tenure. This intervention is particularly distressing because it comes at a time when we have witnessed other instances of efforts by individuals or organizations to influence hiring, tenure or promotion decisions, based not on the candidate’s scholarship but rather on his or her political views, real or imputed.

We also note that a memorandum dated 22 March 2007 and written by Chuck Suchar, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at DePaul University, to the University Board on Tenure and Promotion seems to conflate the tone of Professor Finkelstein’s work with the substance of his scholarship. We would like to remind you that the American Association of University Professors clearly stipulates that scholars are to be evaluated strictly on the basis of their scholarship’s academic merit and their teaching –not on their collegiality, nor on whether some may deem their scholarly work too controversial. In this regard we are also concerned that Dean Suchar’s memorandum seems to judge Professor Finkelstein on the basis of his alleged failure to conform to what the dean describes as the “Vincentian value of ‘personalism,’” which is not generally accepted as a proper criterion for promotion to tenure.

We understand that Professor Finkelstein’s tenure evaluation is not yet concluded. We urge you and your colleagues to ensure that that evaluation henceforth proceeds in a manner that conforms to generally accepted procedures, such that Professor Finkelstein is evaluated solely on the basis of his scholarship, his teaching, and his service to the DePaul community and to the academic fields in which he works.

Sincerely,
Zachary Lockman
MESA President

Dear Mr. Nikoloff:

On behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and the Committee on Academic Freedom, I am writing to express our profound concern about the abrupt decision of the Harker School administration to cancel a talk to its upper school students by Professor Joel Beinin, scheduled for January 19, 2007.

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 2700 members worldwide. MESA is committed to defending academic freedom, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere. As you are aware, Professor Beinin is a former president of MESA. However, the Committee on Academic Freedom is sending you this letter in its own right.

It is our understanding that Professor Beinin was invited to present a talk to Harker's upper school students and faculty as part of its Distinguished Speaker Series. On January 18th, however, the Head of Harker Upper School contacted Professor Beinin and informed him that the school administration had revoked the invitation, citing pressures that threatened to undermine its financial position and public reputation. According to press reports in the San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere, that pressure was exerted by a small group of individuals, including the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Silicon Valley.

Your school’s decision to cancel Professor Beinin’s talk is a violation of academic freedom, a principle that is vital to the cultivation of democratic values and informed critical thinking, and which your school claims is central to its educational mission. The cancellation also deprives the students, faculty and staff of Harker of the opportunity to hear, and engage with, an important and highly informed voice on Middle East history and current politics, topics of supreme importance to American citizens today. Professor Joel Beinin is an eminent historian of the modern Middle East and of Jewish history. He has been a member of the faculty of Stanford University for more than a quarter century and is currently director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the American University in Cairo.

It is distressing that individuals and organizations purporting to speak for the American Jewish community seem to have been able to prevent your students and faculty from hearing the views of a respected scholar and teacher. This appears to be another success for various local and national organizations seeking to marginalize voices critical of U.S. foreign policy and the policies of the Israeli government.

We strongly urge you to resist such outside pressures and renew your school’s invitation to Professor Beinin. This would send an important signal to your students and to the community at large that Harker School remains committed to the principle of academic freedom and to freedom of speech more broadly.

We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
Zachary Lockman
President

cc: Richard Hartzel
Head of Harker Upper School
500 Saratoga Avenue
San Jose, CA 95129
Fax: 408-984-2325

Diane Fisher
Executive Director
Jewish Community Relations Council of Silicon Valley
dfisher@jcrcsv.org

Dear Prime Minister Erdogan:

I write to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom in order to express our dismay and grave concern over the detention and deportation from Turkey of Finnish independent scholar and freelance journalist Dr. Kristiina Koivunen. Dr. Koivunen was stopped at Van Ferit Melen Airport on December 15, 2006, and was held in an officially unacknowledged detention for 46 hours. On December 17 she was put on a flight from Istanbul Ataturk Airport under police surveillance and expelled from Turkey.

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.

Dr. Kristiina Koivunen is a specialist on the Kurdish question in Turkey. The title of her Ph.D. dissertation is The Invisible War in North Kurdistan (University of Helsinki, Faculty of Social Sciences, September 2002). She is also the author of two travelogues (Teetä Kurdistanissa, 2001; Sankarimatkailijan Kaakkois-Turkki, 2006) on eastern Turkey. As a journalist she had published over 200 articles on Turkish affairs and, most recently, she interviewed Turkish Minister of Defense Vecdi Gönül on November 3, 2006. The interview was published by a Finnish newspaper.

Since 1997, she has visited Turkey sixteen times for research purposes. On her last trip, she entered the country on November 29, 2006 and traveled across Turkey without encountering any difficulties. After her detention at the Van airport she was taken first to the anti-terrorism bureau (Terörle Mücadele Subesi) in Van, and was later moved to the foreigner’s bureau (Yabancilar Subesi). The following day she was flown to Istanbul and held at police headquarters in Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport. Despite Dr. Koivunen’s and her lawyer’s repeated requests, she was not issued any official documents articulating reasons for, or recognizing the fact of, her detention and her deportation. Dr. Koivunen was informed only verbally by a police chief that her entrance to the country was barred pursuant to a decision by the Ministry of Interior in August 2006. That decision was allegedly made months before her most recent arrival, and she was not provided with any notice of that decision until the time of her detention and removal from the country. In fact, on November 29, she was granted entry without incident. We have been informed that after repeated official appeals for justification, the Finnish Embassy in Ankara was faxed a copy of the Turkish Passport Law with the eighth article circled. We understand (through the fifth paragraph of the article) that she was expelled from the country because the Ministry had ‘foreseen’ that her presence in the country would pose a threat to public order.

Our committee is deeply concerned about the unacceptable treatment of Dr. Koivunen. (1) We regard the Turkish Ministry of Interior’s alleged decision as a clear violation of the right to research. Dr Koivunen had never violated Turkish laws during her numerous previous visits to the country, yet, your Ministry’s prohibition now makes it impossible for Dr. Koivunen to conduct research in Turkey. (2) Notwithstanding the decision of the Turkish Ministry of Interior, Dr. Koivunen was granted permission to enter the country on November 29, which meant her stay in the country would be under legal protection. Yet, her legal right to stay in the country was revoked arbitrarily; no reasons were officially provided for her detention, for the revocation of her visa, nor for her ultimate deportation. Further she was not granted any opportunity to legally challenge the official determination.

We are deeply saddened to observe a radical deterioration of the conditions for carrying out critical intellectual work in Turkey over the past six months. The right of individuals to freely express nonviolent opinions has been progressively undermined in the country, fomenting a climate of intimidation and fear. Critical intellectuals expressing opinions or doing research in Turkey have recently been intimidated either through the application of restrictive (and vaguely formulated) legal statutes (such as Article 301 of Turkish Penal code), through the violent attacks of ultranationalist militants or, as we see in the case of Dr. Koivunen, through official but arbitrary and illegal undertakings. This situation gravely damages the image of Turkey as a committed member of the democratic international community. We hope that you share our concerns and that you will promptly implement measures to preclude any further violations of basic and universally recognized essential liberties, including freedom of expression.

In the case at hand, we urge you to take relevant steps to restore Dr. Kristiina Koivunen’s right to conduct research in Turkey. We also ask that you initiate an investigation into the arbitrary and unjustifiable treatment to which she was subjected.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. We look forward to your positive response.

Sincerely,
Zachary Lockman
MESA President


February 13, 2007
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

Your Excellency,

I write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and the Committee on Academic Freedom to protest the recent expulsion of Mr. Matin Meshkin from Tehran’s Amir Kabir University of Technology. Mr. Meshkin is a doctoral candidate in electrical engineering as well as a prominent student activist and member of the Islamic Student Association. His expulsion appears to be another egregious example among a wave of recent such cases in which your government has taken disciplinary action against students who express political opinions that are critical of your government’s policies. I urge you to investigate the circumstances leading to Mr. Meshkin’s expulsion and allow him to continue his education.

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 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.

Mr. Meshkin is an advanced doctoral candidate who is close to completing the final requirements for his doctorate in electrical engineering. He has completed all of the coursework to receive his degree, has carried out the necessary research, and written his doctoral dissertation. He has also successfully completed the required comprehensive doctoral examinations. He now waits to schedule his thesis defense in order to complete the final requirement of the doctorate. It was at this stage in Mr. Meshkin’s education that he was summarily— and without explanation—expelled from Amir Kabir University in December of last year. Prior to his formal expulsion Mr. Meshkin had been notified that the grant he had been awarded to fund his education from the Shahid Chamran University in Ahvaz had been withdrawn. Mr. Meshkin protested the termination of his university grant and offered to pay his own tuition to complete his doctorate degree. It was at this point that he received official word of his expulsion. As of this date neither Mr. Meshkin nor his lawyers have received any formal explanation accounting for his expulsion. His case is now pending at the Administrative Justice Court.

Your Excellency, you are no doubt aware of the student protests at Amir Kabir University that also took place in December of last year, where students confronted President Ahmadinejad during a campus visit. You are also no doubt aware of public comments made by President Ahmadinejad during this campus visit. As video taped reports of the campus visit document, President Ahmadinejad publicly threatened student protestors with disciplinary action, including expulsion from the university, if they become identified as “starred students”—named because stars or asterisks have been placed next to their names on official intelligence ministry lists in connection to their political activism. Given that Mr. Meshkin was a prominent member of the student movement at Amir Kabir University we have no alternative but to conclude that his expulsion from the university is connected to his political activism.

The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran explicitly protects the rights of individuals to freedom of thought, opinion, and speech (Articles 23). The constitution also explicitly prohibits the exercise of

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Page 2

punitive measures against individuals for the exercise of these guaranteed rights (Article 2 and Article 3). Further, your government’s actions are in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Articles 18, 19, 21), to which the Islamic Republic of Iran is also a state party.

The expulsion of Mr. Meshkin does further damage to the reputation of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a country where students, academics, and intellectuals can engage in critical debate free from government intrusion. In fact, Mr. Meshkin’s case is just one example of a disturbing trend in your country’s university system. As we have detailed in previous letters to your office (see letter of September 13, 2006), during the past year students and professors from numerous Iranian universities have been disciplined, fired, forcibly retired, expelled, and otherwise harassed on grounds that are clearly related to their political opinions and associations. This trend has also been documented by numerous international non-governmental organizations, including Human Rights Watch in its report of October 2006 titled Denying the Right to Education http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/iran1006).

Your Excellency, we trust that you will appreciate the seriousness of this matter and will take the appropriate measures to reverse Mr. Meshkin’s dismissal. We also ask that you initiate measures that will preserve the principles of academic freedom at Iranian universities. We look forward to your positive response.

Sincerely yours,
Zachary Lockman
MESA President

cc: Ali Reza Rahai, Chancellor
Amir Kabir University
Fax: +982 1 641 3964

Majid Atayi-Pur
Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
Amir Kabir University
Fax: +982 1 646 8681

Dear Prime Minister Erdogan:

I write to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom in order to express our dismay and grave concern over the expulsion of Prof. Dr. Atilla Yayla from his faculty position at Gazi University. Dr. Yayla was summarily dismissed after he spoke on a panel in Izmir organized by the youth branch of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which you lead. Professor Yayla also faces possible prosecution under Law 5816 and/or Article 301 of the Penal Code.

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.

Because of our mandate, we have previously sent you letters of concern on January 25, 2007 (regarding Dr. Taner Akçam), July 20, 2006 (regarding Elif Safak), November 30, 2005 (regarding Fatih Tas), November 20, 2005 (regarding Orhan Pamuk), June 23, 2005 (regarding Yektan Türkyilmaz), and May 27, 2005 (regarding the cancellation of an academic conference to address issues surrounding the Armenian Genocide of 1915).

In the case of Dr. Yayla, according to the Turkish media, instead of defending academic freedom as is the responsibility of any university, President of Gazi University Rektörü Prof. Dr. Kadri Yamaç denounced Dr. Yayla’s exercise of freedom of expression. Subsequently, the Izmir Public Prosecutor’s office launched an investigation into his “heretical thoughts,” raising the possibility that he, like Pamuk, Safak and others, will be tried for “insulting Turkishness.” The right of individuals to freely express nonviolent opinions has been progressively undermined in Turkey, fomenting a climate of intimidation and fear.

The tolerance for the suppression of critical thought debases the important achievements your government has made in democratic reform. Professor Yayla has done nothing more than to reinterpret the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and to argue that the single-party period under his leadership (1925-1945) fell short of meeting the criteria of a liberal democracy. It is in fact the role of a scholar to foster the pursuit of knowledge, promote the constant development of ideas, and rigorously interrogate beliefs and assumptions. As Dr. Yayla correctly notes, an academic should be “free to think, to search and share findings.”

The Middle East Studies Association is deeply concerned with the deteriorating situation of academic freedom in Turkey. We urge your government to give the highest priority to eliminating Article 301 without delay. This clause has tarnished Turkey’s international image and impedes its ability to meet the standards of free speech as required by the European Union’s accession criteria.

We ask that you instruct the Prosecutor General to drop any criminal charges that may be filed against Professor Yayla and take all necessary steps to press for his reinstatement.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. We look forward to your positive response.

Sincerely,
Zachary Lockman
MESA President

Dear Prime Minister Erdogan:

I write to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom. We wish to express our grave concern over the criminal investigation of Dr. Taner Akçam, a visiting professor of History at the University of Minnesota, for stating that the 1915-1917 deportations and massacres of Armenians constituted a genocide. Charges are pending under Turkish Penal Code Articles 301.1 (“insulting Turkishness”), 214 (“instigation to commit a crime”), 215 (“praise of a crime and criminal”), and 216 (“instigating public animosity and hatred”). The investigation threatens the freedom of expression and academic freedom of Dr. Akçam and contributes to the atmosphere of intellectual and physical intimidation of academics and intellectuals who deal with controversial issues.

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.

The criminal investigation of Dr. Akçam was prompted by an article he published on October 6, 2006 in Agos, the Armenian Turkish weekly, in which he defended Armenian Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, who was to be prosecuted under Article 301 for using the term “genocide”. He asserted that he, rather than Mr. Dink, has consistently used the term “genocide” to describe the Armenian deportations and massacres of 1915-17. Dr. Akçam urged his compatriots, whether they agreed with the use of the term or not, to protect the right of others who do so and to de-criminalize the studying and writing of history. Hrant Dink’s murder on January 19, 2007 underscores the seriousness of the criminal investigation of Dr. Taner Akçam, who has been a regular contributor to the weekly Mr. Dink edited. He, and other academics and public intellectuals researching and writing about the Armenian/Turkish issue, operate in an atmosphere of increased intimidation in which they face threats to their security as well as to their academic and civil rights.

The criminal investigation of Dr. Akçam on the basis of Articles 301.1, 214, 215 and 216 of the Turkish Penal Code is a direct violation of his civil and human rights. As a member state of the Council of Europe and a signatory of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and a state party to the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Turkey is required to protect the freedom of expression.

The Middle East Studies Association is concerned over the noticeable deterioration of the situation of academic freedom in Turkey. During the past eighteen months we have written four letters to your government asking that charges brought against academics under Article 301 be dropped. We urge the Government of Turkey to initiate steps necessary to remove Article 301 from the country’s Penal Code. Article 301 criminalizes any “insult to Turkishness,” the Turkish Parliament, the Turkish government, or the military and security forces. It is difficult to imagine how the government could prosecute a person under this law without violating Turkey’s obligations, under Article 10 of the European Human Rights Convention and Article 19 of the ICCPR, to guarantee and protect the freedom of expression. Freedom of expression lies at the core of academic freedom. Furthermore, the repeated prosecutions under Article 301 sharply contrast with your government’s recent call to leave the debate around the controversial events of 1915 to the independent study and judgment of scholars.

We encourage you to immediately stop the criminal investigation against Dr. Taner Akçam and to desist from such investigations in the future which use the provisions of Article 301 of the Penal Code as a way of punishing academics, publishers, public intellectuals and other Turkish citizens who express ideas and views of Turkish history at variance with those of the authorities.

Thank you very much for your attention to this matter, and we look forward to your positive response.

Sincerely,
Zachary Lockman
MESA President

Dear Prime Minister Shaikh Maktoum:

I am writing to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom. We wish to convey to you our great concern regarding the October arrest and questioning of an American scholar, Assistant Professor Syed Ali, and his subsequent expulsion from Dubai. Given that a growing number of US universities have branches or programs in Dubai, Professor Ali’s case, as detailed below, raises serious concerns about the ability of other faculty to pursue their research without harassment or fear of expulsion.

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.

Syed Ali teaches in the Department of Sociology at Long Island University, and was the recipient of a prestigious Fulbright fellowship, a grant which provided the funding enabling him and his family to travel to the UAE so that he could conduct his research. On 22 October 2006, five men in dishdashas who refused to identify themselves, and one woman identified as a member of the police force, presented Professor Syed Ali with a court order to search-and-confiscate. The six came to the home of the professor’s friend, where he had been for only three days awaiting the arrival of his wife and son in Dubai. This was also only one day before the professor and his family were scheduled to take a flight to India.

The five men searched the apartment thoroughly and confiscated the professor’s laptop computer and also his iPod, backup CDs, hand-written notes, and computer printouts. Then they told him that he had to go with them. His wife, Eli, who had arrived a few hours earlier, said that she and their son Sami wanted to accompany him, but the six would not allow this. Nor did they allow her to retain her husband’s mobile phone, even though she had no telephone of her own and knew no one in Dubai. They then took Professor Ali to the police headquarters in Deira, where they made him put his head down so that his face would not be visible through the window, before they took him into the compound through a side gate.

Once inside, Professor Ali was interrogated for approximately thirteen hours by two men, one of whom claimed that he had studied in Russia. The professor asked whether the US consulate had been informed about his arrest. The men answered “yes.” The questioning concentrated on the professor’s background: where he was born; when he came to the United States; his educational history; and his employment history. Interspersed with these questions were sudden interjections: Why did you come to Dubai? Who is funding you? Why are you asking so many questions about locals? Who gave you permission to come? Professor Ali has told us that he answered all their questions but they did not accept his answers, asking him the same things over and over again. He also says that at no time were the questioners violent; they did not even raise their voices.

Meanwhile, the professor’s wife had gone to a hotel near the friend’s apartment to call the US consulate. As a Fulbright fellow, Ali and his family were traveling under the sponsorship of the US Department of State. Contrary to the assurances given him by the interrogators, neither the ambassador nor the consul general had been informed about his arrest. They were able to locate him after more than nine hours of attempts, and managed to arrange for his release. Comparing notes afterward, it seems that the interrogators halted the questioning at about the same time that the US consulate received word that Ali would be released. They departed, leaving him alone in the interrogation room for about two hours. Then a superior officer appeared. Professor Ali asked if he was being charged. The officer replied that he could be held for 48 hours without charge. The officer also stated that he had been asking too many questions about Emirates and expatriates, and since Professor Ali had not answered satisfactorily, they would be keeping his files, although they would return his laptop after they had taken the data from it. Then he would have to leave on the next available flight. When he asked to be able to take his scheduled flight to India, the officer agreed, but told Professor Ali that when he returned to the United States, he would be forbidden to transit through Dubai. He would be arrested if he attempted to enter Dubai again.

The next day, Professor Ali was informed by telephone that his belongings would be returned; concerned because the caller did not identify himself, the professor arranged to meet him at a mall. There he met two men, neither of whom showed any identification. When asked, one said that he did not have to show his identification. Professor Ali was instructed to write a receipt stating that his electronic equipment had been returned in “best operating condition” even though the iPod he was given was not his own, and his computer was missing both its hard drive and operating system. Soon after that, an embassy car took the professor his wife and son to the airport to board their scheduled flight to India.

Professor Ali has no idea why he was arrested and his property confiscated and destroyed. He had been in the UAE for only a short time when these events transpired and no charges were filed against him. In addition to frightening the professor and his family, these men, apparently agents of the UAE government also destroyed his equipment and confiscated his notes and printouts. Moreover, the apparent decision to ban Professor Ali from returning to Dubai will impede his ability to complete the field work for his book, thus delaying or obstructing the publication of work necessary for him to retain his university position.

We ask that you investigate these events and request that the agents responsible return his notes and printouts and compensate Professor Syed Ali for the cost of replacing his computer. We also ask that you consider inviting him back to the UAE under your protection so that he can complete his research.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter. We look forward to your positive response.

Sincerely,
Zachary Lockman
MESA President

CC: Dr. Hanif Hassan Ali, Ministry of Education, (+971-3-7611198)
Dr. Kamal Nasser, Vice-Chancellor al-Ain University (+971-3-7611198)
Dr. Larry Wilson, Provost and Deputy Vice President Zayed University
Bldg. E, Lelvel 1, PO Box 19282, Dubai, UAE
Dr. Lance de Masi, President, American University in Dubai, ldemasi@aud.edu
Dr. Elias Bou Saab, Executive Vice President, American University in Dubai, ebousaab@aud.edu
Dr. Jihad Nader, Provost/Chief Academic Officer, American University in Dubai
jnader@aud.edu
Dr. Winfred L. Thompson, Chancellor, American University in Sharjah, wthompson@aus.edu
Dr. John Mosbo, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, American University in Sharjah, jmosbo@aus.edu
Ms. Hilary Olsin-Windecker, Public Affairs Officer, Fulbright Program in UAE,
(+971-2-414-2603)
Mr. Gary Garrison, Asian/Middle East Program, Council for International Exchange of Scholars, (202-362-3442)
Mr. Paul Sutphin, US Consulate General in Dubai, Dubai World Trade Center, PO Box 9343, Dubai, UAE

Dear Prime Minister al-Maliki:

We write to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) to express our grave concern over the killing of two of Iraq’s most prominent academics: Isam al-Rawi, a professor in the Department of Geology at the University of Baghdad and president of the Union of University Professors, and Jassim al-Asadi, Dean of the University of Baghdad's School of Administration and Economics.

Professor al-Rawi was killed by unknown gunmen on October 30, 2006, on his way to work. Then, on November 2, 2006, in an act which many observers see as revenge for the earlier killing, unknown gunmen murdered Professor al-Asadi, his wife and son as they passed by car through the neighborhood of al-Adhamiyya.

Their murder highlights the startling fact that over 180 university professionals in Iraq have been killed since the 2003 US-led occupation and thousands of academics, teachers, clinicians, writers and artists have fled your country. We note that entire academic departments at Baghdad University and on other campuses have been forced to close down and are no longer able to fulfill their educational and research missions.

As we have previously noted, the present Government of Iraq has done little to ensure the safety of academics since it took office. A significant portion of the current violence against academics has been perpetrated by sectarian militias affiliated with the ruling political coalitions. Professors have been threatened, harmed, kidnapped and assassinated because of their actual or alleged political affiliations, or because they failed to respond resolutely to demands of students for special treatment. Communities of students are becoming politicized in a way that threatens the institutionalization of tolerance and the protection of intellectual diversity.

We ask your Excellency to recognize that the destruction of Iraq’s intellectual and academic class through murder and mass exodus is a profound challenge to the future of Iraq and that you take immediate action to:

1) Secure the campuses in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq;
2) Affirm the independence of Iraq’s system of higher education,
immunize it against sectarian politics as far as possible and provide
for it a budget that is institutionally protected from partisan or sectarian
pressures; and
3) Identify the murderers of Professors al-Rawi and al-Asadi and bring
them to justice.

Please know that we remain ready to take steps, together and with sister organizations, to promote programs and policies in Iraq and on behalf of the international community of scholars and researchers that will resolutely address this disturbing situation.

Sincerely,
Juan R.I. Cole
MESA President

Roger W. Bowen
AAUP General Secretary

cc: Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie
The Embassy of Iraq
1801 P Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036 USA
Fax: (202) 462-5066

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.

Dr. Judt’s October 3 talk had been arranged by Network 20/20, an independent New York City-based membership organization that sponsors lectures and discussion panels on issues relating to United States foreign policy. According to Network 20/20, many of its events are held at the Polish Consulate, and the Consulate had been generous and supportive of their efforts over the years. Dr. Judt’s cancelled talk was to be on U.S. foreign policy and the role of the pro-Israel lobby. Approximately 100 persons had been expected to attend. The president of Network 20/20, Patricia Huntington, told our committee that the Consulate had never before cancelled any of its programs there.

According to Ms. Huntington, a member of your staff telephoned her at 4:15 p.m. on the day of the event to tell her that it was cancelled. When she asked to speak with you, your staff member said that this was not possible because you were on the telephone with Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and that you had been on this call “a long time.” After notifying Dr. Judt of your sudden cancellation, she and other Network staff members, who had planned to arrive at the Consulate at 5 p.m. as usual to set up refreshments and deal with other logistics of the event, instead tried to notify meeting participants of the cancellation. In a subsequent press release, Network 20/20 said, “the consulate informed us that they were canceling the event because it was ‘too controversial.’ We regret that the Polish Consulate felt compelled to cancel Tony Judt’s talk.”

You have told the press that “maybe four” groups had called you on October 3 to express concern about Dr. Judt’s talk, but you declined to identify them. It now appears that the ADL person you were then speaking with was someone calling on Mr. Foxman’s behalf. Mr. Foxman has publicly denied allegations that the ADL put any pressure on you to cancel the event, but also said, “I think they made the right decision.”

David Harris, executive vice president of the American Jewish Committee, has said that he was one of the callers. “We didn’t want [the Consul General] to get blind-sided by any criticism that may emerge,” he said, according to an account in the Jewish Week of October 13. “It was natural to pick up the phone and say, ‘We want to be sure you know Tony Judt is a controversial figure in the Jewish community, and we want to understand whether you’re aware of it, because otherwise there could be misunderstandings.’” Harris said he “didn’t go to the extent of menacing or threatening, or any such thing,” and “I certainly didn’t ask the consul general to take any particular action.” According to press accounts, Mr. Harris has also commended the Consulate for doing “the right thing.”

From a perspective of protecting academic freedom and the core democratic principles of free speech and the free exchange of ideas, it is our view that you did the wrong thing.

In an interview with the Jewish Week, you said, “It’s not true that they threatened or made any pressure. They simply expressed concern.” Elsewhere you said, “The phone calls were very elegant but may be interpreted as exercising a delicate pressure. That’s obvious – we are adults and our IQs are high enough to understand that.”

You have also said, “I don’t have to subscribe to the first Amendment,” and that you took your decision “for my state’s interests.” Of course, as Consul General you and your government have every right to determine what takes place at the consulate. In this case, however, Network 20/20 has used your premises regularly for several years, at your invitation. Your decision to cancel Dr. Judt’s talk at literally the last minute, following these telephone calls, reflects a disturbing disregard for freedom of expression, a principle that the governments of Poland and the United States have pledged to respect. It is difficult to avoid concluding that pressure was indeed exerted on you by various pro-Israel organizations, however elegantly it may have been conveyed. We regret that you chose to succumb to that pressure, thereby conveying a message that you do not consider the free exchange of ideas to be worthy of your support when those ideas are “controversial.”

We strongly urge you to reconsider your decision of October 3, and in the process affirm your support for free expression and the free exchange of ideas, by inviting Professor Judt to give a talk at the Consulate at a mutually convenient time and on a subject of his choosing.

We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
Juan Cole
President

cc: Abraham Foxman, National Director, Anti-Defamation League
Fax: 212-895-7700
David Harris, Executive Vice President, American Jewish Committee
Fax: 212-891-1492
Patricia Huntington, President, Network 20/20
Fax: 212-586-3291

October 3, 2006
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20520
Fax: 202-647-2283

Dear Secretary Rice:

We, the Middle East Studies Association of North America’s Committee on Academic Freedom, are writing to express our grave concern and dismay over the Department of State’s denial of a visa for a second time to a world-renowned scholar of Islam, Professor Tareq Ramadan. It is apparent that this decision was made on purely political grounds, in clear violation of the principles of academic freedom and free speech, both of which are critical to the functioning of a healthy democracy. We urge you in the strongest terms to review and reverse this decision without delay.

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.

On August 30, 2004, we wrote asking for clarification regarding the Department of State’s then-recent decision to revoke the visa Dr. Ramadan had already been granted so that he could take the prestigious Luce Chair at the University o Notre Dame. As specialists in the region familiar with Ramadan's record, we stated that there was absolutely no evidence for the allegations then circulating in some media outlets claiming that Dr. Ramadan had advocated violence or had been associated with groups that perpetrate violence. On the contrary, numerous reputable scholars from prestigious universities had testified to his academic credentials and his character as a researcher and teacher.

In response, in a letter dated 3 September and addressed to MESA’s Executive Director, Dr. Amy Newhall, the State Department stated that the visa had been revoked “prudentially based on information that became available after the visa was issued” and that “Due to the confidentiality of visa records, as provided for in the Immigration and Nationality Act, [the Department of State] was not able to provide any details concerning this matter.”

Following the June 2006 ruling by a federal court which ordered the State Department either to grant the visa to Dr. Ramadan or provide an explanation for not doing so, Department spokeswoman Janelle Hironimus stated that Dr. Ramadan was denied a visa “for providing material support to a terrorist organization.” This charge is apparently based on the fact that he made donations between 2000 and 2004 in the amount of 600 euros to French and Swiss organizations that provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians – donations which Dr. Ramadan himself disclosed in his visa application. Thus, in denying him a visa, the US government is apparently using Section 411(a)(1)(A)(iii) of the Patriot Act, related to excluding individuals believed to have provided “material support” for terrorism.

That contributions to European organizations seeking to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation is viewed by the US government as constituting support for terrorism, already speaks volumes about the administration’s lack of understanding of the region and the quality of its stated concern to promote freedom and democracy in the Middle East. It is also unreasonable to expect that Dr. Ramadan should have had advance knowledge that the United States would at a future date put the organization to which he was contributing on its list of groups supporting Hamas; it figured on no such list at the time he made his donations.

Dr. Ramadan is a leading scholar and public intellectual whose writings and statements make clear his opposition to violence and terrorism. Indeed, the basic concern that motivates much of his work is one of reconciliation and interfaith coexistence. It seems clear that Dr. Ramadan’s charitable contributions in fact have nothing at all to do with the visa denial: its origins lie elsewhere. By his own account of the visa interviews conducted at the US embassy in Switzerland, the focus of the questioning was his positions on Palestine and Iraq. On these questions, like many others, Muslims and non-Muslims, Americans and non-Americans, scholars, intellectuals, and average citizens, Tareq Ramadan has been a critic of US policy in Palestine/Israel and Iraq. It appears that this visa denial has nothing whatsoever to do with his donations, but instead is punishment for his political views.

As we stated in our letter of 2004, “denying qualified scholars entry to the United States because of their political beliefs strikes at the core of academic freedom. On that basis alone, the decision to deny Dr. Ramadan access to our country is unacceptable.” We also find the decision profoundly counter-productive to the stated aims of US policy, which is to develop a better understanding of Muslims and the Muslim world. It is clearly in US interests to encourage dialogue and exchange with Muslims, particularly prominent and highly regarded members of Muslim communities who do not espouse violence, regardless of what their positions on US foreign policy may be. How does it serve the interests of the United States, which is currently seeking to improve its ties with and image in the Arab/Islamic world, to exclude from entry one of that world’s most highly regarded thinkers and scholars?

We are deeply troubled by this second denial of a visa to Dr. Ramadan. It is a clear violation of academic freedom and of the principle of free speech. We respectfully request that you review and reverse this decision without delay.

Sincerely,
Juan R.I. Cole
MESA President

cc: Ambassador Karen Hughes
ACLU

Dear Madame Ambassador:

The Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association has taken the liberty of forwarding to you a copy of a letter we sent to the Secretary of State, Dr. Condoleeza Rice, concerning the denial of an entry visa to the noted Islamic scholar, Tareq Ramadan.

We are concerned about an increasing number of visa cancellations of this nature. Such denials have had negative consequences for the image of the United States in the Muslim world and have also given rise to significant problems in the promotion and expansion of student and scholar exchange programs. It has adversely affected as the ability of our members to conduct research abroad and develop and maintain important scholarly and collegial connections in the Arab Middle East.

Individual members of our committee have expressed an interest in working with you and your staff to reach a larger understanding of the impact of current visa policies on shared interests and goals in the region.

Please feel free to contact Amy Newhall, Executive Director of MESA, who can put you in touch with relevant committee members.

We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
Juan R. I. Cole
MESA President

Dear Minister of Defense Amir Peretz
Fax: +972-3-696-2757/+972-3-691-6940/+972-3-691-7915

I write to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, and its Committee on Academic Freedom in order to request that the Government of Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces allow 10 occupational therapy students from Gaza to attend Bethlehem University. These students, including Shima Naji, petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court in December 2005, and asked the court to overturn the restriction placed on their access to study in the West Bank. We request that you immediately lift the order restricting them from traveling to the West Bank and that you direct your legal representatives not to oppose this petition. This is essential in order that these students exercise their right to access to education, a key component of academic freedom.

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.

While Israel has legitimate security concerns and a responsibility to protect its citizens, it must do so in a manner that does not violate international human rights and humanitarian law, including the prohibition against collective punishment. A sweeping prohibition imposed on all students from Gaza against studying subjects such as occupational therapy and medical specializations that are only available at West Bank universities, however, constitutes precisely such a violation. The rationale offered by the Government of Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces is that students from Gaza studying in the West Bank might become involved in hostile acts against the State of Israel in the future. It is not based on any evidence of past and current wrongdoing on the part of individual students, but, rather, on a collective suspicion of all Palestinian students.

As you know, collective punishment is forbidden under humanitarian international law. A restriction imposed on all students from Gaza is transparently punitive and thus clearly constitutes collective punishment as well as a drastic and unwarranted denial of academic freedom. By proscribing access to West Bank universities and academic disciplines of choice, your government is denying the right to education to hundreds of students.

Over 200 professors in Israeli universities have recently called for these sweeping restrictions to be lifted.

On behalf of MESA, I ask that your government allow the 10 petitioning occupational therapy students from Gaza to attend Bethlehem University and thus restore their access to higher education and academic freedom. Occupational therapy is a new specialization in Gaza and there is currently only one practitioner with 24,000 cases requiring his/her attention.

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
Juan R.I. Cole
MESA President

Your Excellency,

I am writing on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America to express our concern over the announcement last week that your government plans to purge liberal and secular faculty members from universities in Iran. We respectfully request assurances from you that any compulsory retirement of academic personnel be done in a transparent manner and without regard to their political views.

We also request assurances about the well-being of Dr. Mohamed Hadi Hadizadeh-Yazdi, a physics professor at Ferdowsi University, whom the authorities detained in May 2006 reportedly on charges of conspiring against the Islamic Republic.

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.

Our concern regarding the risk of forced retirements on political grounds stems from the University of Tehran’s announcement in June 2006 that between 40 and 45 of the faculty members who had reached the mandatory retirement age would be obliged to retire. Abbasali Amid Zanjani, the president of the university, told reporters that the university would decide which among the faculty members who had reached 65, or in some cases 60, would be asked to leave. Several well-known Iranian academics, including a former minister of culture and higher education and a former president of the University of Isfahan, have publicly expressed concern that political considerations will play a role in the threatened dismissals. More recently, in early September, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a gathering of young scientists that students should “protest and shout about” and demand “why some liberal or secular professors are still present in the universities.”

Our concern is heightened by recent government acts that violate the rights of academics to freedom of thought and speech. In May 2006, the authorities arrested Ramin Jahanbegloo, a prominent scholar affiliated with the Iranian Institute of Contemporary Studies, and Mohammad Hadi Hadizadeh-Yazdi, a physics professor at Ferdowsi University in Mashhad. The authorities recently released Professor Jahanbegloo on bail. We understand that the charges against him, reportedly based on the fact that he meets with foreigners in the course of his work, have not been dismissed. We do not know the circumstances or conditions of Professor Hadizadeh-Yazdi's continued detention and we remain concerned about his well-being.

We feel compelled to remind Your Excellency that the rights of individuals to freedom of thought, opinion, and speech are explicitly protected under the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Article 23), as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Articles 18, 19, 21), to which the Islamic Republic of Iran is a state party. Dismissing professors for exercising these rights directly violates these solemn commitments to human rights and academic freedom, and represent an affront to the universal value of free and open exchange of ideas.

For this reason we ask that you ensure that Iran’s universities use transparent and non-discriminatory criteria in any decisions regarding compulsory retirement, and that no academics face dismissal solely or mainly because of political views that they express peacefully.

Your Excellency, we trust that you will appreciate the seriousness of this matter and we look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
Juan R.I. Cole
MESA President

Your Excellency,

I am writing on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to express our concern over the recent death of Akbar Mohammadi while in detention at Evin Prison on July 30, 2006, and to inquire regarding the medical condition of his brother Manuchehr Mohammadi who is still being held in detention. Akbar and Manuchehr Mohammadi were both arrested along with other student activists in July of 1999 during demonstrations protesting the closure of a daily newspaper. We consider their participation in these peaceful demonstrations to be a protected form of expression as guaranteed by universal standards of academic freedom of speech and assembly. Since their detention we have closely followed developments in their case and have become increasingly concerned for their well-being and that of others being detained by your government.

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.

Information we have received indicates that since his initial arrest in 1999 Akbar Mohammadi had been subject to torture and ill treatment while in police custody. Mr. Mohammadi had reportedly gone on a hunger strike in June of 2006 to protest his detention. During this period credible reports suggest that he was denied access to legal counsel and medical treatment. We are gravely concerned that the conditions under which he was being held as well as the decision by your government to deny him medical treatment in July of 2006 were the cause of his death.

The fate of Akbar Mohammadi’s brother, Manuchehr Mohammadi, is also of concern to us. We have reports that he, too, had been on a hunger strike to protest the circumstances of his detention and had in fact slipped into a coma in July of 2005 before receiving medical treatment. Documented reports regarding his detention indicate that he has previously been tortured and mistreated while in the custody of your government. His current medical condition is unknown to us; however, we have reason to believe that he is currently being denied access to legal counsel and to his family members.

Given the circumstances surrounding the death of his brother we feel it is urgent that you take steps immediately to determine the physical condition of Manuchehr Mohammadi and to grant him access to legal counsel and to his family. We also urge you to immediately begin an independent investigation into the circumstances of Akbar Mohammadi’s death while in detention, and that you make the results of this investigation public.

We feel compelled to remind you, Your Excellency, that the rights of individuals to freedom of thought, opinion, and speech are explicitly protected under the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Article 23), as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Articles 18, 19, 21), to which the Islamic Republic of Iran is also a state party. The detention and ill treatment of student activists for protesting the closure of newspapers is in direct violation of these protected rights and the universal value of free and open exchange of ideas. The death of photojournalist Zahra Kazemi in 2003 while in police custody, the arrest and continued detention of Ramin Jahanbegloo since April of this year, and the previous arrest of Akbar Ganji, in addition to the case of Akbar and Manuchehr Mohammadi, can only be conceived as direct attacks on these universal principles.

Your Excellency, we trust that you will appreciate the seriousness of this matter and take the immediate appropriate measures.

Sincerely,
Juan R.I. Cole
MESA President

Dear Prime Minister Olmert:

On behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom, I am writing to express our concern over the recent arrest of Professor Ghazi Walid Falah, a dual Israeli-Canadian national working in the US with permanent resident alien status, and a respected associate professor of geography at the University of Akron, Ohio.

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.

Professor Falah traveled to Israel on July 4 from Toronto after hearing that his mother had been hospitalized with a brain tumor. On July 6, Professor Falah, an avid photographer whose photos have appeared on the cover of the Arab World Geographer and who also uses photographs for his teaching and research, went to Nahariya. Security personnel arrested him that day just north of Nahariya, where he was taking photographs. He was then taken to his brother’s home, near Nazareth, to collect his belongings, and was then brought before a judge in Akko, who approved the security forces’ requests to detain him without charge. He has been under arrest since July 8 and has been unable to see his lawyer or contact his family or consular officials. On Sunday July 16, his arrest was extended for another 15 days.

Because some of Professor Falah’s past research projects have been critical of Israeli land policies, we are concerned, in the absence of formal charges against him, that his arrest may owe to his record of academic research and publishing. The fact that his family requested his home institution, the University of Akron, to send documents to US consular authorities vouching for his academic work heightens our concern that his arrest may be related to his research and publishing and therefore constitute a violation of his academic freedom.

MESA’s Committee on Academic Freedom holds that the free exchange of ideas is among the basic human rights codified in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, both of which Israel has ratified. We ask, on behalf of our organization, that you use your good offices to ensure that Professor Falah has access to his lawyer and his family, that he be released promptly or charged with a criminal offense, and if he is charged that he be tried before a court that meets international fair trial standards.

Sincerely,
Juan R.I. Cole
MESA President

cc: Mr. Haim Ramon, Minister of Justice
Mr. Menachem Mazoz, Attorney General

Dear Prime Minister Erdogan:
I write to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, and its Committee on Academic Freedom, in order to express our grave concern over the prosecution of Elif Shafak for allegedly “insulting Turkishness” with respect to comments made by Armenian characters in her novel The Bastard of Istanbul–Baba ve Piç (Metis 2006). Dr. Shafak, a respected scholar and well-known novelist, currently teaches at the University of Arizona and is a member of this association. She faces charges brought under Article 301 of the Penal Code. If she is found guilty, she faces up to 3 years in prison.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) is comprised of 2600 academics worldwide who teach and conduct research on the Middle East and North Africa, and is the preeminent professional association in the field. The association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and is committed to ensuring respect for the principles of academic freedom and freedom of expression in the region and in connection with the study of the Middle East and North Africa in North America and elsewhere.

We are saddened to observe that many public intellectuals, journalists, publishers, and academics, such as Orhan Pamuk, Ragip Zarakolu, Hrant Dink, and Baskin Oran, have recently been brought to trial on charges that they violated Article 301 of the Penal Code. This article criminalizes any alleged “insult” to “Turkishness,” the Turkish parliament, the Turkish government, or the military and security forces. These broad prohibitions directly violate the internationally guaranteed right to freedom of expression, and thus cast doubt on the sincerity of Turkey’s commitment to improve her human rights record. Furthermore, the repeated prosecutions under Article 301 sharply contrast with your government’s recent call to leave the debate around the controversial events of 1915 to the independent study and judgment of scholars.

As a member state of the Council of Europe and a signatory to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and as a state party to the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Turkey is required to protect freedom of expression. We therefore strongly urge you to instruct the Prosecutor General to drop the charges against Dr.Shafak without delay, in the interest of justice and Turkey’s reputation.

We further urge the government to initiate the steps necessary to remove Article 301 from the country’s Penal Code. It is difficult to imagine how the government could prosecute a person under this law without violating Turkey’s obligations under Article 10 of the European Human Rights Convention and Article 19 of the ICCPR to guarantee and protect freedom of expression. The right to freedom of expression lies at the core of academic freedom. At the very least, we encourage you to instruct the Prosecutor General to desist from bringing any charges in the future under the provisions of Article 301 as a way of punishing and silencing individuals whose ideas may diverge from those of the authorities or influential segments of society.

Thank you very much for your attention to this matter, and we look forward to your positive response.

Sincerely,
Juan R.I. Cole
MESA, President

June 20, 2006
Andrew D. Hamilton
Provost
Yale University
PO Box 208365
New Haven, CT 06520-8365

Dear Dr. Hamilton,

I am writing on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America. We understand from recent press reports that Yale University’s History and Sociology departments had recently approved a decision to extend an offer of joint appointment to Dr. Juan Cole. According to these reports, the university’s Senior Appointments Committee subsequently voted to overturn that decision.

We are also aware that Dr. Cole’s candidacy for this position had attracted considerable hostile attention in some conservative media outlets as a result of critical positions Dr. Cole has articulated concerning policies of the governments of the United States and Israel. Our Committee is concerned that politically-motivated pressures outside and inside the university rather than professional norms may have influenced the Senior Appointments Committee’s decision to overrule the recommendation of the two departments.

We would welcome any clarification you can provide about measures the university has taken to ensure that such external and non-professional influences do not influence decisions on appointments. We would also appreciate knowing if the university plans to take any steps, such as an official independent inquiry, into the decision not to appoint Dr. Cole.

As you may know, Dr. Cole currently serves as president of the Middle East Studies Association. We are, however, an independent committee acting in our own right out of concern that political considerations may have played a role in the decision not to hire Dr. Cole. Dr. Cole, additionally, has formally recused himself from this matter inside MESA and the Committee on Academic Freedom.

Thank you in advance for your consideration of this inquiry. We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,
Joe Stork
Chair
Committee on Academic Freedom

Dear Mr. Stork:

As you can imagine, Yale’s policy on confidentiality prohibits me from commenting publicly on any appointment matter, including that of Professor Juan Cole, about which you wrote to me. I can categorically assure you that Yale’s search and the appointment processes are carefully monitored, both by a dean and by members of the Provost’s Office, and this is particularly so when specific appointments draws special internal or external attention. Our criteria for appointment are based solely on an individual’s scholarship, teaching, and service, and an individual’s political views are never taken into account in making appointment decisions. We also have robust procedures that the Provost may initiate if he or she has questions about the outcome of an appointment. No such procedure has been initiated in this case.

Sincerely,
Andrew D. Hamilton
Provost

Your Excellency:

We write to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and the Committee on Academic and Intellectual Freedom of the International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS) to protest in the strongest possible terms the recent arrest of Dr. Ramin Jahanbegloo, a prominent Iranian intellectual and political theorist. We urge you to use your good offices to determine the circumstances of his detention and to secure his immediate release.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America and the International Society for Iranian Studies are the preeminent international organizations in their respective fields. MESA, founded in 1966, and ISIS, founded in 1967, were established to promote scholarship and teaching on Iran, the Middle East, and North Africa. MESA publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2600 members worldwide; ISIS publishes the international journal of Iranian Studies and has more than 500 members worldwide. Both organizations are committed to ensuring academic freedom, the free exchange of ideas, and freedom of expression in all its forms, both within Iran and the Middle East and in connection with the study of Iran and the Middle East in North America and elsewhere.

According to information we have received Dr. Jahanbegloo was arrested at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport in late April. Officials from your government have stated that Dr. Jahanbegloo is currently undergoing “interrogations” and that he is suspected of crimes related to “security and spying”. Despite these statements, as of this date no official charges have been filed against Dr. Jahanbegloo. Officials have stated that charges against Dr. Jahanbegloo will only be filed after his interrogation. Given these facts we are concerned that officials of your government are in the process of coercing confessions from Dr. Jahanbegloo. We also have reason to believe that he has been allowed only limited access to his family, and as far as we know he has not had any access to legal counsel.

Dr. Jahanbegloo is a highly respected scholar and academic who is currently the head of the department of Contemporary Studies at Tehran’s Cultural Research Bureau, an important institution in your country that has gained international recognition for its important scholarly work in the area of Iranian history, culture, and politics. Dr. Jahanbegloo’s work as part of the Cultural Research Bureau has contributed to the high regard in which it is held by scholars both inside and outside of Iran. He has also studied and taught at major universities in Europe and North America, including the Sorbonne, Harvard University, and the University of Toronto. In his role as a public intellectual Dr. Jahanbegloo has also consistently advocated for the US and Europe to adopt a less confrontational approach in dealing with Iran. His published work includes over twenty books in Persian, French, and English on topics relating to European and Iranian intellectual history and political philosophy. Dr. Jahanbegloo’s writing reflects a thoughtful consideration of Iran’s encounter with modernity and the difficult and complex process by which modern Iranian intellectuals have sought to define universal values such as democracy and human rights in terms that are organic to Iranian tradition. Given the arbitrary and unusual nature of Dr.
Jahanbegloo’s detention, we are compelled to conclude that his arrest is connected to his scholarly and intellectual pursuits.

We also feel compelled to remind you, Your Excellency, that the rights of individuals to freedom of thought, opinion, and speech are explicitly protected under the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Article 23), as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Articles 18, 19, 21), to which the Islamic Republic of Iran is also a state party. The arbitrary arrest of Dr. Jahanbegloo does further harm to the reputation of Iran as a country where scholarly research and inquiry are highly valued. Dr. Jahanbegloo’s arrest and detention can only be conceived as a direct attack on the principles of academic freedom and critical intellectual inquiry.

Your Excellency, we trust that you will appreciate the seriousness of this matter and will take the appropriate measures. We urge you to secure his immediate release.

Yours Respectfully,
Juan R.I. Cole
President, MESA

and

Janet Afary
President
ISIS

I write to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle
East Studies Association of North America to protest in the strongest possible terms the continued unlawful imprisonment of our colleague Professor Arif Dalila and to encourage you to use your good offices to secure his release, to ensure that he receives adequate medical care and that his family not be subject to any further harassment or ill treatment.

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 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.

We have been following the case of Professor Dalila for several years since
his arrest in September of 2001 and have written to you before on his account (11 January 2002). As you are aware, he was arrested after having founded the Committees for the Revival of Civil Society, a nongovernmental organization. In addition to his participation in civic forums, Professor Dalila was one of ninety-nine intellectuals who signed the Intellectuals’ Manifesto of September 2000, also known as the “Statement of the 99,” a document that is widely regarded as having paved the way for the emergence of civic forums in Syria. He subsequently helped organize a petition signed by 1,000 Syrian citizens demanding freedom of expression, pluralism, strengthening the role of women in public life, freedom of press, and the restoration of civil society.

In November 2002, MESA awarded Professor Dalila one of our highest honors, the Academic Freedom Award, recognizing him: “For his courageous advocacy of democratic rights and civil liberties as an academic and in his professional field of economics, and his commitment as a public intellectual in Syria to the principles of free expression and the free exchange of information and ideas…and in recognition of his endurance of persecution and harassment by the government of Syria on account of his advocacy of fundamental rights and liberties for all Syrians.”

Since our first letter, we have received credible reports that Professor Dalila has been subjected to torture and ill-treatment and denied access to medical care. The authorities have harassed his family and persons believed to be agents of the government attacked and seriously wounded his son Shadi. Calls for his release by intellectuals and academics throughout the Arab world and beyond have gone unheeded.

As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights since 1969, Syria is obliged to respect and protect the exercise of those rights enumerated in Articles 18, 19, and 21¬namely the right to freedom of thought, expression, and opinion. The Covenant also prohibits torture and inhuman treatment (Article 7) as well as arbitrary arrest and deprivation of liberty, except under legally established procedures (Article 9).

The Covenant also requires that anyone arrested should be treated with respect and dignity (Article 10) and that they be informed of the nature of the charges against him/her (Article 14). We therefore urge you to take the steps necessary to end the multiple infringements of Professor Dalila’s fundamental human rights.

We also urge you to affirm the right of professors and intellectuals as well as others to organize social, political and cultural clubs and civil society organizations free from unnecessary governmental interference. If necessary, the government should revise legislation governing the right of association to comply with international standards.

President Al-Asad, we urge you to secure the immediate release of Professor Dalila on humanitarian grounds and to make certain he be given appropriate medical attention.

We thank you in advance for your attention to this matter and look forward
to your reply.

Sincerely,
Juan R.I. Cole
MESA President

On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), I write to express our very grave concern regarding the United States government’s blanket denial of visas to fifty-five Cuban scholars scheduled to participate in the Latin American Studies Association’s (LASA) International Congress, to be held on March 15-18, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We urge you to reverse the State Department’s decision, which seriously interferes with the higher education community’s capacity to fulfill our core mission and represents a serious threat to academic freedom.

MESA is committed to fostering the free exchange of knowledge as a human right and to inhibit infringements on that right by government restrictions on scholars. The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provide the principal standards by which human rights violations are identified today. Those rights include the right to education and work, freedom of movement and residence, and freedom of association and assembly. Infringements include governmental refusal to allow scholars to conduct scholarly research, publish their findings, deliver academic lectures, and travel to international scholarly meetings. We believe that the denial of visas to these academics represents just such an infringement.
We urge you to reconsider the recent decision to deny visas to the Cuban scholars scheduled to participate in the XXVI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association. Intellectual exchange and scholarly collaboration across national borders is essential for our community. It is critical for foreign scholars to have freedom of access to our academic meetings—and just as critical for American scholars to be free to engage in scholarly argument about significant contested issues in our fields. These activities only benefit us all.

Sincerely,
Amy W. Newhall, PhD

April 26, 2006

Dear Dr. Newhall:

Thank you for your recent letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressing concerns on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) regarding the denial of visas for Cuban scholars who wished to attend the Latin American Studies Association conference. I have been asked to respond to your inquiry personally. Due to mail screening procedures, we have only recently received your letter. We appreciate your patience in awaiting a response.

The Department of State is keenly aware of the importance of international participation in the United States’ academic and scientific communities. Foreign students and scholars enrich our country culturally and intellectually, help foster international goodwill, and assist in promoting United States interests abroad. We at the Department are fundamentally committed to protecting the openness of the United States while ensuring the security of our borders. Although security must remain our first priority, we work every day to see that access to our country is not impeded for those whose presence we encourage and value.

While we enthusiastically support and administer visa programs for legitimate travel to the United States, visas can only be issued in strict accordance with the criteria in the Immigrant and Nationality Act (INA). Each visa application is adjudicated on a case-by-case basis, and consular officers attempt to be as sensitive as possible to applicants’ situations. However, the officer’s first responsibility is to conscientiously administer the INA, and the fundamental issue is whether the applicant qualifies for the visa under US law on his or her own individual merits.

Current US immigration law, in conjunction with Presidential Proclamation 5377 of October 4, 1985, suspends entry in toe the United States of officers and employees of the Cuban Government and Communist Party, with very limited exceptions. Under these circumstances we approve vises for Cubans only when doing so supports US foreign policy interest in our efforts to advance the prospects for a democratic transition in Cuba.

We hope this information is helpful.

Sincerely,
Dale Rumsbarger
for
Julie Furuta-Toy
Director
Office of Diplomatic and Public Liaison Visa Services

Your Excellency:

I write on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association to protest the banning in Egypt of a book published by the American University in Cairo Press, Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad by Natana J. DeLong-Bas for Egyptian scholarly audiences.

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 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.

From reports in the press and other sources, we understand the situation to be as follows: Wahhabi Islam was originally co-published in 2004 by Oxford University Press in the United States and I.B. Tauris in the United Kingdom. This year the American University in Cairo (AUC) Press agreed to publish it in Cairo in order to make it more accessible to Egyptian scholarly audiences.

According to our information, on October 8, 2005, the AUC Press was informed that copies of the book which had arrived at Port Said would not be allowed to enter Egypt because it contained “information not in accordance with the principles of Islam and cannot be published in the Arab Republic of Egypt in this form.” The Press thereupon requested from Al Azhar Academy of Islamic Research a copy of the report specifying what parts of the book were judged objectionable. This was requested in writing three times, but no response whatsoever has been received.

The Middle East Studies Association and its Committee on Academic Freedom of course take no position on the contents of this or any other book. It is the principle of academic freedom and the rights of citizens generally to free expression and to receive and impart information which is at stake here.

These rights are guaranteed under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Egypt is a state party, and can be restricted only for sound reasons of national security, public order, or public health and morals. The banning of this book, particularly in the university setting of an academic press, clearly exceeds these permissible grounds for restriction. Furthermore, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Egypt is a party, states in its preamble that member states pledge
themselves “that every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms.”

DeLong-Bas’s Wahhabi Islam is being widely discussed by Muslim and other scholars around the world who look to al-Azhar and Egypt as respected centers of Islamic learning and intellectual leadership. It would be deplorable if a ban on the book makes it impossible for Egyptian citizens to contribute constructively to this discussion. This would be particularly unfortunate at a time when democratization is under lively discussion within Egypt and your government has committed itself to significant steps in that direction.

Book-banning and similar acts of official censorship help to sustain a climate of intolerance that is debilitating to society in general and to intellectual life in particular.

We ask you to take steps now to end official and state-sanctioned book-banning in Egypt, and thereby to affirm publicly your government’s commitment to the rights of free expression and the free flow of ideas that are fundamental to a civilized society.

Respectfully yours,
Juan R.I. Cole
MESA President

cc: Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi
Fax: 02-593893

Dear Prime Minister Erdogan,

I write to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, and its Committee on Academic Freedom, in order to express our grave concern over the prosecution of Fatih Tas, owner of Aram publishing house, for his publication of the Turkish translation of Professor John Tirman’s, Spoils of War: The Human Cost of America’s Arms Trade (Free Press, 1997). Mr. Tas was called before the court of First Instance of Istanbul on November 17, 2005 on charges of violating paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code. He is accused of humiliating Turkishness, the Turkish Republic, Turkish Soldiers, and the Government. If indicted, Mr. Tas will face up to 5 years in prison.

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 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.

Trying Mr. Tas on these charges is a direct violation of his civil and human rights. As a member state of the Council of Europe and a signatory to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and as a state party to the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Turkey is required to protect freedom of expression.

We urge the government of Turkey to initiate the steps necessary to remove article 301 from the country’s Penal Code. Article 301 criminalizes any “insult” to “Turkishness”, the Turkish Parliament, the Turkish government, or the military and security forces. It is difficult to imagine how the government could prosecute a person under this law without violating Turkey’s obligations, under Article 10 of the European Human Rights Convention and Article 19 of the ICCPR, to guarantee and protect freedom of expression. Freedom of expression lies at the core of academic freedom. At the very least we encourage you to instruct the Prosecutor General to drop immediately the charges against Mr. Tas and desist from bringing such charges in the future under the provisions of Article 301 of the Penal Code as a way of punishing and intimidating academics, publishers, public intellectuals and other Turkish citizens who express ideas a views of Turkish history and politics at variance with those of the authorities.

Thank you very much for your attention to this matter, and we look forward to your positive response.

Sincerely,
Juan R.I. Cole
MESA President

Your  Excellency:

We write to you today, on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), regarding the continued imprisonment of Hossein Ghazian, a sociologist and co-director of the Ayandeh Research Institute in Tehran. Dr. Ghazian has been imprisoned since late October 2002, when he was arrested following publication of opinion polls the institute conducted on subjects that included popular attitudes in Iran towards the United States. Dr. Ghazian’s arrest and continued imprisonment stand in clear violation of his internationally guaranteed rights to freedom of expression and freedom to impart and receive information, which are constituent rights of academic freedom. We strongly urge you to take the necessary steps to secure his immediate release and to dismiss of the unjust charges lodged against him.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) is comprised of 2600 academics worldwide who teach and conduct research on the Middle East and North Africa, and is the preeminent professional association in the field. The association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies, and is committed to ensuring respect for the principles of academic freedom and freedom of expression in the region and in connection with the study of the Middle East and North Africa in North America and elsewhere.

Following his arrest, Dr. Ghazian was convicted on charges of waging propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran and cooperation with a belligerent state and was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison. Some of the charges were dismissed on appeal but he remained convicted on the charge of cooperation with a belligerent state (article 508 of Iran’s Penal Code); his sentence was thus reduced to four and a half years. Two colleagues who were arrested with him, Mohsen Goudarzi and Abbas Abdi, were released in 2004 and 2005, and cleared of all charges, but Dr. Ghazian’s efforts to appeal his remaining  conviction to the Supreme Court have been blocked by Saeed Mortazavi, the presiding judge in Dr. Ghazian’s case and now Tehran’s chief prosecutor.
 
The Ayandeh Research Institute conducted the opinion polls in question for the U.S.-based Gallup Organization and the Zogby Polling Institute. One poll was part of an international survey of values in Muslim societies; the other, conducted a week before the June 2001 presidential election in Tehran, surveyed popular perceptions of Iranian-U.S. relations.

According to a submission Dr. Ghazian made to the Supreme Court, during his period of incarceration the authorities kept him in solitary confinement and subjected him to physical and psychological abuse. He also was denied the right to communicate regularly with his lawyers and family, in violation of Iran’s constitution. The legal office in Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in response to requests by Dr. Ghazian’s lawyers, stated in 2004 that the Islamic Republic does not consider the United States to be a belligerent state. However, Judge Mortazavi has to this point refused to allow this and other documents in the case to be reviewed by the Supreme Court.

Your Excellency, the Judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran falls directly under your authority. Dr. Ghazian, who in several weeks will have spent three years in unjust detention, has been convicted and sentenced solely for acts that are protected under Article 19 of the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a state party. We urge you to take steps to secure his immediate and unconditional release and dismissal of the unjust charges on which he was convicted.
 
We look forward to your positive response to this request, and thank you in advance for your attention to this important matter.

Sincerely yours,
Amy W. Newhall
Executive Director, MESA

CC: Ambassador Zarif, IRI Mission to the UN

Dear Prime Minister Sharon,

We write to you to express our grave concern over the impact Israel’s security barrier is having on the Palestinian educational system in East Jerusalem. In practical application, the barrier infringes on the academic freedom and right to education of hundreds of teachers and thousands of pupils by effectively denying access to East Jerusalem schools. We urge you to take decisive action that will guarantee the full right of access of all Palestinian teachers to their schools in East Jerusalem and the right of education to all Palestinian students.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) comprises 2600 academics worldwide who teach and conduct research on the Middle East and North Africa, and is the preeminent professional association in the field. The association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies, and is committed to ensuring respect for the principles of academic freedom and freedom of expression in the region and in connection with the study of the Middle East and North Africa in North America and elsewhere.

Israel’s security barrier has nearly been completed in the Jerusalem area. In this area, the barrier is being built entirely on Palestinian lands occupied in the 1967 war, in clear contravention of International Humanitarian Law. Because it is being built deep inside Palestinian areas, the barrier has cut off Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem from surrounding Palestinian communities making it nearly impossible for teachers living in the outlying areas from reaching their schools in East Jerusalem.

It is our understanding that nearly 700 East Jerusalem-based teachers fall into the category of living outside the barrier without an Israeli identification card and thus cannot reach their schools. Even though Palestinian schools are about to open, only a small number of these teachers have been approved entry. Essentially barring hundreds of teachers from reaching their schools will have a devastating effect on the 18,000 pupils in the 50 private schools that provide the bulk of education to Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

We have further concerns over the potential of unwarranted delays in crossing the barrier even for those teachers who have the necessary paperwork; this has been a common problem elsewhere for Palestinians seeking to cross the barrier or pass other military checkpoints in the West bank. Punitive or other delays not linked directly to immediate and legitimate security risks would likewise constitute an abridgement of the Palestinians’ right to education.

Guaranteeing the right to education for Palestinians in East Jerusalem is a test case for how Israel intends to use the barrier. To date, it has not been encouraging. We ask that you immediately lift all restrictions on teachers seeking to cross the barrier to access their schools in East Jerusalem. This can be done without harming Israel’s legitimate security requirements.

Sincerely yours,
Ali Banuazizi
MESA President

Your Excellency:

I write to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle
East Studies Association of North America in order to express our grave concern about the current condition and whereabouts of Mr. Yektan Turkyilmaz. Mr. Turkyilmaz is a Ph. D. candidate at Duke University and has been a member in good standing of the Middle East Studies Association. Mr. Turkyilmaz is being held by the Armenian security services at an undisclosed location in Yerevan.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) comprises 2600 academics worldwide who teach and conduct research on the Middle East and North Africa, and is the preeminent professional association in the field. The association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies, and is committed to ensuring respect for the principles of academic freedom and freedom of expression in the region and in connection with the study of the Middle East and North Africa. Numbered among our members are some of the world’s experts on Armenian history, culture, literature and genocide studies, and the Society for Armenian Studies is an affiliated organization.

At the time of his detention Mr. Turkyilmaz was in Armenia conducting research on the history of Eastern Anatolia during the interwar period. He has conducted research in the country before without incident. Upon seeking to leave the country after finishing his work on this trip, he was seized on suspicion of smuggling old books and/or documents and questioned on his archival work and political beliefs. He has been held incommunicado well over 72 hours and we are unaware of any charges against him.

We ask on behalf of our organization that you use your good offices to investigate the specific issues involved and act to ensure that Mr. Turkyilmaz is treated fairly and provided all legal rights due him. We strongly urge you, at a minimum and urgently, to obtain information about Mr. Turkyilmaz’s whereabouts and conditions of detention, and convey that information to his family. We are willing to act as a conduit for that information.

As evidence of our commitment to academic freedom, MESA recently sent a strongly worded statement to Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey decrying actions by members of his government that led to the cancellation of a conference organized by Turkish academics on the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and other events of the period 1915-1923. Our actions derive from our larger belief that scholarship, free exchange of ideas and international collegiality can help lessen political tensions between states and increase mutual respect and understanding amongst peoples. With your help, what may merely be a misunderstanding can be kept from turning into an international political issue of value to none.

Sincerely,
Ali Banuazizi
President, Middle East Studies Association
Professor, Boston College

June 22, 2005
His Royal Highness Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud
Royal Court
Riyadh 11111
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Your Highness:

I write to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America in order to express our grave concern over the six year prison sentence handed down on May 15, 2005 against Professor Matrouk Al-Faleh of King Saud University. I have enclosed a copy of our letter of March 29, 2004 to Interior Minister Prince Nayif, in which we protested the arbitrary arrest of a number of Saudi academics, including Prof. Al-Faleh.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) comprises 2600 academics worldwide who teach and conduct research on the Middle East and North Africa, and is the preeminent professional association in the field. The association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies, and is committed to ensuring respect for the principles of academic freedom and freedom of expression in the region and in connection with the study of the Middle East and North Africa.

Prof. Al-Faleh was convicted of the most specious of charges, including sowing disorder in society, disobeying the authorities and issuing declarations to public opinion inside and outside the country (as quoted in al-Hayat, May 16, 2005, p. 1). None of these charges involve acts of violence or threats of violence against the government or any persons. In fact, Prof. Al-Faleh has been convicted of exercising his universally-acknowledged right to freedom of speech. His conviction not only contravenes global standards of academic freedom, it also runs counter to international and Arab covenants to which Saudi Arabia is a party.

Ali al-Dumaini, a co-defendant of Prof. Al-Faleh who was himself sentenced to nine years in prison, pointed out in his open letter to the court (www.rezgar.com/debat/show.art.aspaid=37023) that their conviction runs directly counter to obligations which the Saudi government itself took on when it signed the Arab Covenant for Human Rights, an amended version of which was agreed to at the Arab summit of May 23, 2004. Among the provisions of that covenant which were contravened in this case are: the right to political activity, the right to peacefully assemble with others, the right to freedom of expression, and the right to disseminate political writings. The court proceedings also ran counter to a number of the rights included in the Covenant, including the right of the accused to a public trial without undue delay. It is also clear that the trial did not meet international fair trial standards.

We call upon you to take appropriate steps to ensure that this unjust ruling is voided and that Prof. Al-Faleh is able to return to his academic position at King Saud University without delay and without prejudice.
Yours sincerely,
Ali Banuazizi
President, Middle East Studies Association
Professor, Boston College

cc: Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the United States

Dear Prime Minister Sharon:

On behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom, I am writing to express our strong opposition to the May 2, 2005 decision of the Israeli Cabinet to upgrade the status of the College of Judea and Samaria, located on the West Bank settlement of Ariel, to university status. Since that decision is subject to the approval of the Council on Higher Education, we are writing separately to that committee to urge rejection of the decision.
[MESA is...]
Our objection to this decision is based on the fact that Israel’s settlements on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip are in violation of international humanitarian law. Article 49 (6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) specifically forbids an occupying power from transferring and settling its own citizens in occupied territory. Article 55 of the Hague Regulations (1907) prohibits creating permanent changes in an occupied territory that are not intended to benefit the protected persons of that territory—in this case, the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank. It is manifestly clear that this college, like the settlement of Ariel, is not intended to benefit the area’s Palestinian inhabitants. The College of Judea and Samaria has already increased the traffic of Israeli citizens to the illegal settlement of Ariel. The college’s faculty and students are prime users of the Trans-Samaria Road, a four-lane highway built on confiscated Palestinian land. Palestinians, including those whose land was confiscated to build this highway, are prohibited from using major portions of that road. West Bank Palestinians, moreover, are absent from the faculty and student body of the college. The establishment of an institution of higher learning in an illegal settlement thus creates an additional obstacle to Israel’s compliance with international law.
Indeed, the college to be upgraded lies in an area where the Israeli government is obliged to freeze all construction work under the “Roadmap” peace plan drafted by the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, endorsed by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1515 (2003), and accepted by your government. Despite your government’s commitments in this regard, you were quoted as saying, in supporting this decision regarding the college, that it is “in keeping with government policy, which views strengthening the settlement blocs as being among its goals.”
MESA’s Committee on Academic Freedom holds that the free exchange of ideas is among the human rights identified by the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This spirit of freedom of inquiry and exchange is the essence of what higher education should embody. It is clear that such exchange cannot occur at an institution of higher learning built on confiscated land and in clear violation of international humanitarian law. Moreover, upgrading the College of Judea and Samaria to the status of university, on a par with Israel’s other universities inside its internationally-recognized borders, would demean the reputation of the latter by giving an illegal institution equal standing with the recognized high standards of Israel’s universities as a whole.
For these reasons, we strongly recommend that your government not proceed to upgrade the College of Judea and Samaria to university status, but rather relocate its facilities to a location inside Israel’s internationally recognized borders in order to provide educational opportunities to its present and prospective students. Israel must respect its obligations under international law and not tie legitimate educational requirements to its illegal settlement drive.

Sincerely,
Ali Banuazizi
President, Middle East Studies Association
Professor, Boston College

Cc:
Minister of Education Limor Livnat, and Chair, Council of Higher Education
United Nations General Secretary General Kofi Annan
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of the Russian Federation
Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn of Luxembourg for the European Union Presidency
High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European
Union Javier Solana
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

Dear Minister Livnat:

On behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom, I am writing to you and to the members of the Council for Higher Education, to request that the Council reject the May 2, 2005 request of the Israeli Government to accredit the College of Judea and Samaria, located on the West Bank settlement of Ariel as a university.
[MESA is...]
Our objection to this decision is based on the fact that Israel’s settlements on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip are in violation of international humanitarian law. Article 49 (6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) specifically forbids an occupying power from transferring and settling its own citizens in occupied territory. Article 55 of the Hague Regulations (1907) prohibits creating permanent changes in an occupied territory that are not intended to benefit the protected persons of that territory—in this case, the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank. It is manifestly clear that this college, like the settlement of Ariel, is not intended to benefit the area’s Palestinian inhabitants. The College of Judea and Samaria has already increased the traffic of Israeli citizens to the illegal settlement of Ariel. The college’s faculty and students are prime users of the Trans-Samaria Road, a four-lane highway built on confiscated Palestinian land. Palestinians, including those whose land was confiscated to build this highway, are prohibited from using major portions of that road. West Bank Palestinians, moreover, are absent from the faculty and student body of the college. The establishment of an institution of higher learning in an illegal settlement thus creates an additional obstacle to Israel’s compliance with international law.
Indeed, the college to be upgraded lies in an area where the Israeli government is obliged to freeze all construction work under the “Roadmap” peace plan drafted by the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, endorsed by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1515 (2003), and accepted by the government of Israel.
MESA’s Committee on Academic Freedom holds that the free exchange of ideas is among the human rights identified by the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This spirit of freedom of inquiry and exchange is the essence of what higher education should embody. It is clear that such exchange cannot occur at an institution of higher learning built on confiscated land and in clear violation of international humanitarian law. Moreover, upgrading the College of Judea and Samaria to the status of university, on a par with Israel’s other universities inside its internationally-recognized borders, would demean the reputation of the latter by giving an illegal institution equal standing with the recognized high standards of Israel’s universities as a whole.
For these reasons, we strongly recommend that the Council for Higher Education reject the request of the government to accredit the College of Judea and Samaria as a university, and recommend that it be relocated inside Israel’s internationally recognized borders in order to provide educational opportunities to its present and prospective students. Israel must respect its obligations under international law and not tie legitimate educational requirements to its illegal settlement drive.
Sincerely,
Ali Banuazizi
President, Middle East Studies Association
Professor, Boston College

Reply received June 27, 2005
Professor Ali Banuazizi, President
Middle East Studies Association of North America, Inc.
1219 N Santa Rita Ave.
The University of Arizona
Tucson AZ 85721

Dear Professor Banuazizi,

Thank you for your letter of June 14, 2005, concerning the proposed upgrading of the College of Judea and Samaria from a college to a university.
We greatly respect your association’s commitment to “the principles of academic freedom ad the free exchange of information and ideas”, as expressed in your letter to the AUT’s President, stating your “determined opposition” to its proposed boycott of Israel’s university and blacklisting of their faculties.
In that letter you also assert: We especially oppose penalizing entire segments of an academic community for any reason whatsoever.” The faculties and student bodies of all Israel’s higher education institutions are made up of people whose opinions and beliefs embrace the entire political spectrum.
This is true at the College of Judea and Samaria as well. Seventy percent of its students come from Tel Aviv and central Israel. Approximately 300 of its students are Arabs.
The reasons given by Arab students for studying at the college are manifold. The courses offered by the college are not taught at every university. Some of the College’s departments have a national reputation for excellence.
Acceptance to the college is easier than to the universities, although its courses are difficult. To ensure that students succeed tutoring and English and Hebrew language instruction are available, which also eases their integration in to college life.
Hebrew is not studied in Palestinian universities. Arab students have found that studying in Hebrew and learning about Israeli culture opens more doors to them in the job market after graduation.
The College is convenient for students who commute, and for those who must work and study at the same time. Tuition fees at the College are half those of private colleges.
Research to be published shortly concludes that the College’s Arab students have a positive sense of belonging. Relations between Arab and Jewish students are good; the former are active in campus politics and members of the student union. In an interview, an Arab student said, “If we stay home and don’t go to university, will that help us or our society more?”
The College sponsors an outreach program to find more potential Arab students. Under its auspices, preparatory course for matriculation examinations are given in Arab cities and villages throughout the country.
Last month, the names of three prominent Arab local council heads appeared in an ad on the front page of one of Israel’s major newspaper, Ha’aretz. The ad congratulated the College on opening registration for the 2006 school year, and commended it for encouraging coexistence between the various sectors of Israeli society.
The administration and faculty of the College of Judea and Samaria is committed to providing its students-Jewish and Arab-with the finest higher education and training. We believe that, elevated to university status in accordance with the rigorous requirements of the council for Higher Education in Israel, the College can deepen its commitment to the future of our youth and society.
When asked what attracted him to teaching at the college, an engineering faculty member stated that it was “the thought of teaching at a college in which there is an encounter between Jews and Arabs, between Israelis and Palestinians. It was very appropriate for me to bring people closer together in teaching and in research.
Surely, these lessons in peace and understanding that the College’s students learn in and out of the classroom encourage the “spirit of freedom of inquiry and exchange [that] is the essence of what higher education should embody”.
Sincerely yours,
Limor Livnat
Minister of Education, Culture and Sports
State of Israel

May 27, 2005
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Office of the Prime Minister
Basbakanlik
06573 Ankara, Turkey
Via facsimile +90 312 417 0476

Dear Prime Minister Erdogan:

I write to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, and its Committee on Academic Freedom, in order to express our grave concern over actions taken by members of your government which precipitated the decision of the rector of Bosphorus University to cancel an academic conference entitled, “Ottoman Armenians in the Period of the Empire’s Collapse.” These actions violate the academic freedom and human rights of Turkish scholars, a number of whom are members of our association.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) comprises 2600 academics worldwide who teach and conduct research on the Middle East and North Africa. It is the preeminent professional association in the field and publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies. MESA is committed to ensuring respect for the principles of academic freedom and freedom of expression in the region and in connection with the study of the Middle East and North Africa. The organization also counts among its membership many of the world’s leading experts on the history of the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey.

The conference was to have been held May 25-27, 2005 at Bosphorus University in Istanbul. Organized by members of the history, sociology and comparative literature faculties of both Bosphorus and Sabanci universities, the conference sought to address in a scholarly, open and critical manner issues surrounding the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Aided by an international advisory committee of academics from Turkey and abroad, the conference’s organizers adhered in their preparations to all Turkish laws regarding public assemblies and academic gatherings.

However, according to published press reports, following intense criticism by Turkish government officials and parliamentarians–including Minister of Justice, Cemil Çiçek, who accused those organizing the conference of being guilty of “treason and insult”–the university officials cancelled the meetings just hours before they were to begin. Citing “prejudicial statements [which] have been advanced [by government officials] regarding the contents of a conference that is yet to be held,” the university officials noted that these statements give “cause for concern that [they] will result in undermining the academic freedom of state universities.”

As a member state of the Council of Europe and a signatory of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Turkey is required to protect freedom of thought, expression and assembly. These rights are also enshrined in the Turkish Constitution of 1982.

Therefore we urge your government to take all necessary steps to ensure that this conference may be held as planned and as soon as possible. Just as important, and particularly given Justice Minister Çiçek’s use of the word “treason,” a charge that conjures up memories of some of worst forms of persecution of scholars and intellectuals through history, we ask that you assure conference participants and organizers that they will face no official criminal charges or other sanctions following the presentation of their research in this gathering. We ask that you ensure there will be no attempts to censor their work prior to its presentation and further, that all measures required will be taken to secure the personal safety of conference participants and allow open and free academic exchange. Finally, we encourage you to preclude the implementation of any of the provisions of Article 305 of the new Turkish Penal Code, which could be used to arrest academics who express unpopular ideas or revisionist views of the past.

I would appreciate the honor of discussing the work of the Middle East Studies Association with you during your visit to Washington, DC in June if your schedule permits.

Sincerely,
Ali Banuazizi
President, Middle East Studies Association
Professor, Boston College
 
cc:
H.E. Dr. Osman Faruk Logoglu,
Turkish Ambassador to the United States

Dear President al-Asad:

We are writing on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America to express our grave concern about the detention and alleged torture of up to 40 Syrian university students during April 2005 in the Governorate of Latakia. Syrian security forces reportedly took these students into custody solely on the basis of their alleged membership in an unrecognized and unsanctioned student organization, in violation of their internationally recognized rights to freedom of association and freedom of expression.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) comprises 2700 academics worldwide who teach and conduct research on the Middle East and North Africa, and is the preeminent professional association in the field. The association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies, and is committed to ensuring respect for the principles of academic freedom and freedom of expression in the region and in connection with the study of the Middle East and North Africa.

According to information we have received, these students were first detained by state security forces during the third week of April. Many continue to be held incommunicado and without charge. Last week, six of the students who were released reported to the Syrian Committee for Human Rights that they had been subjected to torture – including beatings and the use of electrodes.

As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights since 1969, Syria is obliged to respect and protect the exercise of those rights enumerated in Articles 18, 19, and 21—namely the right to freedom of thought, expression, and opinion. The Covenant also prohibits torture and inhuman treatment (Article 7) as well as arbitrary arrest and deprivation of liberty, except under legally established procedures (Article 9). The Covenant also requires that anyone arrested should be treated with respect and dignity (Article 10) and that they be informed of the nature of the charges against him/her (Article 14).
We therefore urge you to take the steps necessary to end the multiple infringements of their fundamental human rights. Those still in custody should be released or charged with a recognizable criminal offense and provided with a trial in a court of law that meets international fair trial standards. Those in custody should be allowed access to their families and to legal counsel.

We also urge you to affirm the right of students as well as others to organize social, political and cultural clubs and civil society organizations free from unnecessary governmental interference. If necessary, the government should revise legislation governing the right of association to comply with international standards.

We also request that the government make available information concerning the current whereabouts of those students still in detention, their conditions of confinement, and the nature of the criminal charges made against them.

We thank you in advance for your attention to this matter and look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Ali Banuazizi
President, Middle East Studies Association
Professor, Boston College

cc:
Dr. Hani Murtada, Minister of Higher Education, Syrian Arab Republi
Dr. Amir Ibrahim, Rector, Tishrin University, Syrian Arab Republic
Dr. Imad Moustapha, Ambassador of the Syrian Arab Republic
HE Kofi Annan, Secretary General, United Nations

Chancellor Klein’s decision, which was announced by his press secretary, Mr. Jerry Russo, was explained as a response to past statements made by Professor Khalidi that were critical of Israel. Mr. Russo is reported to have said, “Considering his past statements, Rashid Khalidi should not have been included in a program that provided professional development for DOE teachers and he won’t be participating in the future.”  The suggestion that responsible criticism of Israel and its policies should disqualify Professor Khalidi or any other respected scholar from participating in a teachers’ in-service training program undermines the values of free expression that we value in our society.
 
We had hoped that this letter would be unnecessary, given your demonstrated commitment to the fundamental values of freedom in our society, but we have been disappointed by your silence on this matter.  We would like to emphasize that Professor Khalidi is a respected historian, a former President of this organization, and a highly regarded teacher.  It is noteworthy that prior to his dismissal he offered two lectures on the Middle East as part of the teacher development workshops that elicited only praise.  Moreover, many of Professor Khalidi’s colleagues have heard him publicly criticize Palestinian political authorities.  By Chancellor Klein’s logic, Professor Khalidi would on these grounds also be disqualified from lecturing on either side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which would be absurd, as I am sure you agree.
 
This decision by the head of New York’s Department of Education reflects poorly on a city renowned for its willingness to embrace a rich diversity of people and opinion, and especially on a school system justly revered for its bounty of fine graduates. Chancellor Klein’s decision necessarily raises fundamental questions about freedom of speech in the New York City’s schools when issues concerning the Middle East are concerned.
 
As you know, the New York Civil Liberties Union, in a letter to Chancellor Klein, dated March 2, 2005, stated that the Chancellor was violating Professor Khalidi’s First Amendment right to free speech, and the Civil Liberties Union cited constitutional case law to that effect.  Columbia’s President Bollinger called the decision, “wrong not only as a matter of constitutional law but as a matter of good policy and as a matter of the conduct of education.”  He is reconsidering Columbia’s participation in any future teacher training programs.
 
We note that Chancellor Klein’s arbitrary decision was announced at a time when there appears to be a momentum toward a peaceful solution to the conflict that enjoys wide support among Israelis and Palestinians, not to mention many Americans.  While public opinion should not be the criterion of free speech, it appears that the Chancellor of New York’s schools may have improperly allowed himself to be swayed by loud and unrepresentative voices of those determined to de-legitimize and suppress any thoughtful discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that includes criticism of Israeli policies.  In some cases these have been the voices of individuals seeking to gain political advantage by their posturing vis-à-vis Professor Khalidi and his colleagues at Columbia University.
 
Therefore, we respectfully request that you review the Chancellor’s decision with him, with a view to restoring, protecting, and advancing the free exchange of ideas to education in the City.  We would also be grateful for a prompt public statement by you making clear that New York City’s teachers, and the children that they teach, will continue to be exposed to a diversity of perspectives in the classroom rather than merely to what the Chancellor may deem politically expedient or find personally comfortable.
 
Sincerely,
 
Ali Banuazizi
President, Middle East Studies Association
Professor, Boston College
 
cc:
Chancellor Joel I. Klein, Chancellor of the Department of Education

Dear Secretary Powell and Secretary Ridge:

We, the Middle East Studies Association of North America’s Committee on Academic Freedom and the Board of Directors for the American Academy of Religion, are writing to express our very grave concern regarding the decision of the Department of State, made public last week, to rescind the visa for the well-known scholar of Islam Dr. Tariq Ramadan. Dr. Ramadan was slated to take up an appointment in the religion department of the University of Notre Dame, beginning earlier last week. He had received his visa in April 2004, only to have it rescinded, without explanation, in early August. The Department of State’s decision was reportedly taken on the basis of information provided by the Department of Homeland Security. Neither department has made public any reason for the decision. We request that you take the necessary steps to reverse this decision as a matter of urgency, in order that Dr. Ramadan can lecture and meet with students.

[MESA is…]

The American Academy of Religion (AAR) is the major scholarly society and professional association of scholars and teachers in religion. With 10,000 members, the Academy fosters excellence in research and teaching in the field and contributes to the broad public understanding of religion and religions. The AAR publishes the flagship scholarly journal in religion and books in five series through Oxford University Press.

The decision to rescind Dr. Ramadan’s visa is particularly troubling on two grounds. First, he had already received his visa, going through the rigorous screening process that your Departments have implemented for foreign visitors. As far as we are aware, neither Dr. Ramadan nor the University of Notre Dame were consulted regarding any problems or new information that might give cause to rescind his visa.

Second, the lack of explanation for rescinding the visa raises serious questions about the cause of the decision. In the absence of any explanation, we fear that pressures were applied to reverse the granting of the visa by people who disagree with Dr. Ramadan’s views as a scholar and as a public intellectual. That fear is exacerbated by the unsourced comments in some media outlets about alleged “links” between Dr. Ramadan and terrorist groups. There is absolutely nothing in the public record regarding Dr. Ramadan, or in his scholarly production, that would indicate any basis whatsoever for such allegations—and Dr. Ramadan is a scholar very much in the public eye in Switzerland, where he resides and teaches, and in Europe more generally. To us, these allegations smack of a character assassination campaign designed to suppress Dr. Ramadan’s voice at a prominent American university.

Denying qualified scholars entry into the United States because of their political beliefs strikes at the core of academic freedom. On that basis alone the decision to deny Dr. Ramadan access to our country is unacceptable. We also find the decision profoundly counter-productive to the stated aims of our national policy. As our country tries to understand better the Muslim world and to encourage interpretations of Islam which reject violence and terrorism, we will have to be open to dialogue with Muslims who hold political opinions that do not espouse violence but do differ from the opinions of some Americans or are critical of U.S. policies. If controversy is cause enough to deny someone a visa, our prospects for reaching out to Muslims around the world are very dim. The decision to bar Dr. Ramadan from teaching and meeting students and other academics, if allowed to stand, will represent a very low mark with regard to the Bush administration’s commitment to the free exchange of ideas and freedom of expression.

We are aware of absolutely no evidence for allegations that Dr. Ramadan has advocated violence or been associated with groups which perpetrate violence. On the contrary, important scholars and reputable universities have testified to his academic credentials and his character as a researcher and teacher. If the U.S. government has evidence to the contrary, let it be made public, to reassure the American public that untoward political pressures are not affecting the government’s decisions. In the absence of such evidence we can only conclude that denying Dr. Ramadan permission to enter the country constitutes a direct attack on academic freedom and freedom of speech. We respectfully urge you to reconsider this unfortunate decision