International campaign to stop police brutality in the neighborhood and against the Hebrew University’s complicity with inequality and oppression
Over the past six months, the residents of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiyah have been suffering from unrelenting and unfathomable police brutality. We are particularly concerned about the cooperation of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with this ongoing injustice, through implicit support for the closure of the southern entrance to the neighbourhood, a clear act of collective punishment, and through allowing police forces to operate from campus against the neighbourhood.
In the last few months Academia for Equality has contacted the Hebrew University administration several times to condemn the university’s collaboration with repression of civilians and the campus’s transformation into a forward base for human rights violations – this is an immoral situation which contradicts academic values recognized throughout the democratic world.
Together with our partners from the academic community at the Hebrew University, in Israel and throughout the world, we call on university administration to demonstrate solidarity with the residents of Issawiyah, some of whom are themselves members of the Hebrew University community, to notify the police that it supports opening the southern entrance to the neighbourhood, and to refrain from allowing the Israel Police to access the campus except in emergencies.
We call upon all members of the academic community, in Israel and around the world, to join us in this call.
