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affiliate of canpalnet.ca CANADA-PALESTINE SUPPORT NETWORK
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Update on Barghouti
visit to Concordia University
We are happy to announce that Concordia and SPHR have come to an agreement; the Mustafa Barghouti event will proceed as planned. We look forward to hearing Dr. Barghouti speak on the process of nation building and the hope for Palestinians to realize an independent and democratic state which will guarantee security, justice, equality and a dignified existence for its citizens. [Here] is a timely article entitled, "Heckler veto’ muzzling campuses” which underlines the challenges facing those of us who work extremely hard to present the Palestinian perspective of the conflict with the Israeli government. Our mission is to speak out on behalf of the Palestinian people whose human rights must be recognised and protected. We are extremely grateful for your continued support. SPHR
- Concordia
Saturday Feb 28, 2004 Repression
of Pro-Palestinian Activism Continues: Concordia's Head of
We ask you to take the time to read this and to show your support by attending the event. Things have been rather hectic as usual with Concordia administration continuing their attempts to sensor Palestinian Solidarity organizers. Does this sound familiar? Well it was the case in previous years and yet again it continues. The Concordia Security department is blocking Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) from booking the H-110 auditorium for the lecture by Dr. Mustafa Barghouti on March 2nd 2004. The director of Security at Concordia, Mr. Jean Brisebois clearly stated that SPHR cannot hold any events until they pay their previous dues to the Security office. The money in question is the security fee charged to SPHR for the Norman Finkelstein lecture held on Feb. 11th 2004. The amount in question is $160. It was pointed out to Mr. Brisebois by SPHR representative Shadi Hajjara that other student clubs who have not paid their security dues in years have accumulated up to 4 or 5 digit expenses owed to the Security office. Their events have not been blocked, and a demand for their payment has not been made, while SPHR who owes only $160 is being forced to pay and is required to pay upfront another $160 for Barghoutis lecture (no club has been asked to pay upfront in the past). Mr. Brisebois claimed that he will block any club that has not paid their expenses from having events until they pay up, but that claim did not materialize. SPHR believes this to be a clear-cut case of discrimination. The problems started around the time where SPHR was getting a security approval for the Norman Finkelstein lecture. The security office needed an unusually long time, 3 weeks, to approve the event. The result was that two guards were assigned which SPHR had to pay for. Two days before the event, SPHR receives a call from the security office saying that the security threat against Dr. Finkelstein has increased and 6 more guards had to be assigned to the event, their payment has to take place upfront or else the event will be cancelled. SPHR refused to comply, and insisted that this type of blackmail will not go by unnoticed. The security office finally backed down and let the event happen without any problems and the bill for the extra security guards was charged to vice-rector services. After Finkelsteins lecture, things took a turn to the worse. The security office continuously refused to give SPHR an approval for Dr. Barghouti's lecture. The approval form for Dr. Barghouti's lecture was handed in on Jan. 21st, three weeks prior to Finkelsteins lecture, but even one week after the Finkelstein lectured, an approval was not received. Security personnel had a variety of answers to SPHR representatives on why the approval is taking time to be processed. Once it is the big load of approval forms that a few can only process. Another time, it was a new committee formed specifically to look at all Middle East related events, and the committee needed time to meet and review the events (a claim that we realized to be false later on). And most of the time, there was no one there to answer the questions. Up until Wednesday Feb. 18th, there was no clear answer to why the request has not been processed. On that day, when the security desk was asked again about the request, we were told that no decision will be made until SPHR pays up their bill. This was an unprecedented move by the Security office, not once before has a student association or club been held hostage to a security bill. We went to the Security office to meet with Mr. Brisebois hoping he would explain why SPHR was being treated as such. Mr. Brisebois at first refused to come down the stairs from his office to talk our representative (Shadi). Instead he started screaming at Shadi from the top of the stairs and speaking to him in a very unprofessional manner (Shadi filed a security report of the incident claiming harassment). We just want to remind you all that Brisebois had no reason to justify his ludicrous actions. The security bill for SPHRs lecture by Eric Ben-Artzi, Netanyahu's nephew ($320), in Fall 2003 has already been paid by a special project grant for the lecture from the CCSL. And Briseboiss presumptions that SPHR will not pay a bill of $160 just because payment has been received in a week demonstrate his prejudices towards Palestinian Solidarity organizers. Having stated that, it doesnt mean that SPHR is willing to continue paying those security bills. But SPHR was working on a motion in CSU council to put the responsibility of paying those bills on other bodies. The motion was successfully passed on Wednesday Feb. 18th, but still, the end result hoped for from the motion needs a while to materialize since the newly assigned committee would need time to draw strategies and call for meetings with the administration. Back to the story... On Feb. 18th, SPHR tried once more to reason with Mr. Brisebois, but to no use. This time Mr. Brisebois chose to come down the stairs to talk to the SPHR representatives! But his unprofessionalism took over the conversation. Among the things Mr. Brisebois stated during this conversation (remember that he was acting as an official representing Concordia): -- "In my opinion,
there should not be any political activism on campus, the university is
a place to study and I don't like people who come to university to do politics."
Of course, Brisebois was reminded again and again of the student clubs that have not paid up their bills. But he was not concerned with the $20,000 that Hillel owed for Netanyahu, or the MSA's accumulation of bills; it was the one week old $160 bill for SPHR that he's after. Brisebois was concerned because he felt that the security offices budget cannot handle all the growing bills that students clubs acquire, so he wanted to act upon it, but he had to show his true colors in the process, his cowardice since he would only dare pick on SPHR but not MSA or Hillel and his prejudice towards SPHR have become very clear. SPHR contacted the Vice-rector, Mr. Michel Di Grappa, the following day, but his position was the same as that of Brisebois, "pay first, then we'll talk." So SPHR decided to pay the bill for the time being since the event is lurking round the corner, and a lot of resources have been put into getting that event to happen. The payment was made on Monday Feb. 23rd. An approval was received only on Tuesday Feb. 24th, almost 5 weeks after putting in the form. Again remember, when handing in that form to the security desk, the person behind the desk says, "this will take up to 5 working days to be processed." With the approval
came a condition. Specifically, the condition stated that conference services
cannot book SPHR the space unless payment is received upfront for the two
security guards for Barghouti's lecture. Mr. Brisebois knows that the CSU
was off for the whole week because its reading week, and he knows that
SPHR cannot get a signing officer from the CSU to sign on the bill (all
club transactions need CSU approval) since the CSU is closed during reading
week, but he still insisted that SPHR pays first. Brisebois promised to
get in contact with the CSU executives in order to facilitate that transaction,
but SPHR has not heard from him or the CSU executive since. And as we write
this
Again we stress that no club, before this incident, has got their events suspended by the security office because they have not paid their outstanding balances. And no club has ever been asked to pay a bill in advance. SPHR, out of all the clubs, is asked to do so even though SPHR is the only student association that paid ALL their security bills this academic year. We kindly ask you to spread the word and forward this. Your attendance Dr. Barghouti's lecture would be appreciated and it would put much needed pressure on the Security office. The event is Tuesday
March 2nd at 7pm
Concordia University
Rector Frederick Lowy can be reached at e-mail:
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