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Incident documentation Academics for Palestine

“The Palestine exception to free speech” on Swedish higher education institutions – a national initiative to collect testimonials on repression of Palestine solidarity

Background

Censorship is creeping through academic institutions in Europe over expressions of support for Palestine and legitimate critiques of Israel and Zionism. Dr. Brendan Ciarán Browne calls it “the Palestine exception to free speech”. In his words: “Attempts to intimidate both professors and students, or silence them outright, are becoming normalized in a blatant attack on the values that underpin academic freedom. This goes well beyond the question of Palestine and Israel to the fundamental ability of a university to foster free inquiry and debate. As scholars, we must remain vigilant and poised to push back publicly against attempts to silence or censor us over our speech on Palestine.”

Purpose

This is an attempt to systematically collect stories of censorship, harassment and discipline that have occurred in Swedish higher education institutions since October 2023. The purpose is to create comprehensive data of the incidents, with the possibility to submit a coordinated notification to the Parliamentary Ombudsmen (JO). The initiative comes from the informal networks formed to unite students, university teachers, faculty members, and other professionals at Swedish universities in solidarity with the Palestinian people. There is currently no involvement of unions (including student unions) in the initiative.

Method

The information collected through the survey questions is anonymized. However, we are inviting you to share evidence of the incidents through the following secure channels: [email protected] (or personal Signal). Files can be securely uploaded and sent to our email via send.vis.ee - an end-to-end encrypted file-sending service. The data will be stored on an encrypted cloud service (Proton). If you have not deidentified the information you share with us, we will make sure to do so in the pre-processing of the data.

1. Type of incident. How would you categorize the incident?

1. Type of incident. How would you categorize the incident?

2. The incident happened to

2. The incident happened to

3A. I am reporting the incident in my role as 

3A. I am reporting the incident in my role as 

3B. Are you a Swedish citizen?

We ask this question to gauge vulnerability and comprehension of the navigation of the Swedish system.

3B. Are you a Swedish citizen? We ask this question to gauge vulnerability and comprehension of the navigation of the Swedish system.
A
B

4. Date of the incident. If recurring, please explain under question 7

5. Name of the university where the incident occured

6. Place of event/incident. Describe the location (multiple options possible)

6. Place of event/incident. Describe the location (multiple options possible)

7. Describe the event/incident: What happened before, during, and after? I.e. if there were any warnings, if materials like posters, leaflets etc. were destroyed, if security showed up, if the police were called to the event, if anyone was arrested etc.). Were there managers involved and at what levels (no names)? Describe the type of event/incident. Protest, sit-in, seminar, lecture, staff event, doctoral defense etc.

8. How many people do you estimate actively participated at the event/incident?

9. Is there any documentation of the incident? Documentation can be photographs, video and sound recordings etc. 

9. Is there any documentation of the incident? Documentation can be photographs, video and sound recordings etc. 

10. Is the incident documented in any public records? Traditional media outlets, social media, staff communiqués etc.

10. Is the incident documented in any public records? Traditional media outlets, social media, staff communiqués etc.

If yes to questions 9-10, please add links and available reports or information about the incident.

11. Has anything happened after that can be connected to the event/incident? Emails, warnings, follow-up talks etc.

12. Have you made any formal complaint or reported the incident E.g. as a work-place incident, to management or have contacted the labor/student union?

12. Have you made any formal complaint or reported the incident E.g. as a work-place incident, to management or have contacted the labor/student union?

13. Anything else you would like us to know?

We aim to report on the findings at the end of the academic year 2025/2026. Follow the procedure on the WASSAP network website https://wassap.se/. If you want to get in contact or get involved with the WASSAP network, you are more than welcome :)