A British university has withdrawn its decision to withdraw a statement of solidarity with the Palestinian people from an exhibition of the Commission for Human Rights Investigations.
Kyiv. Ukraine. Ukraine Gate – August 19, 2021 – Forums and conferences
Alistair Hudson, director of the Whitworth Gallery at the University of Manchester, said it was important that Forensic Architecture Group’s “Cloud Studies” exhibition “remains fully open”.
Jewish groups were told by a senior official that the fair’s opening statement had been deleted after complaints that it was “factually incorrect and one-sidedly dangerous”.
But with the return of the note of solidarity, Hudson said there will now be space for alternative responses to the issues raised by the show.
He added that the memo “will be prominently displayed in the exhibition,” and added: “The university, as a non-political organization, has tried to balance the very complex issues raised by the exhibition, but we believe that the worst consequence of all parties involved is that this exhibition has been closed for an extended period of time.
Forensic Architecture responded to the university’s decision to cancel the memorandum of solidarity on the Palestinian “liberation struggle” by withdrawing its exhibition “with immediate effect” on Sunday. It is closed on Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays.
At protests outside the Whitworth Gallery on Wednesday, Manchester Palestine Action said the university had “withheld the truth about Israel’s war crimes”.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign said 13,000 letters were sent to the University of Manchester in response to the removal of the note.
The entrance to the Cloud Studies exhibition denounced Israel’s operations in Gaza and accused it of carrying out the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians.
UK lawyers told Israel the memorandum could harm the university’s legally binding obligation under the Equality Act to “promote good relations between different communities”. UKLFI said it was “considering all options” following the decision to return the memo.
Returning to the gallery entrance, Forensic Engineering Director Eyal Weizmann said: “The duty of equality extends to all societies. The impact of removing the statement that we saw on the Palestinians in Manchester and the pro-Palestinian groups is enormous, precisely because they were left out of the conversation.”
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Source: Ukrgate
