This week, a public transport bus in Nijmegen going from the university to the city centre was stopped, and everyone wearing a keffiyeh was arrested. The university had reported property damage to the police, and for completely unclear reasons there was an assumption that this “damage” – which seems to amount to screw holes – was done by the people on the bus. The people arrested were six students and employees of Radboud University. Most were held at the precinct for 30 hours.
Radboud will say that it is not up to them what the police do, like universities always say after they send the cops after their own students and employees. We won’t fall for this excuse. By now, you should know that calling the cops on your students and employees puts them at risk. Also, by ignoring and breaking up demonstrations, by cancelling events, by talking ‘zero tolerance’, and by constantly criminalizing protest and activism, Radboud holds responsibility for these events, and should be held accountable.
We may ask: what severity of damage could justify sending police after random students and staff, who’s only link to those who attempted to occupy a classroom was that they wear the keffiyeh because they oppose genocide? We may ask at what cost Radboud would willingly give away the safety of their staff and students? Is it the 30.000 euro that was communicated as the amount of damages? We would have to squint our eyes until they’re shut to recognize that amount in the provided pictures.
But we will not ask this, because we won’t go along with the twisted logic of the universities. We condemn the reasons posed by the universities again and again, with which they defend the indefensible and ultimately destroy what’s valuable. There is no amount of money loss in property damage that can justify this. Not only the initial reporting to the police, but the fact that the university did not withdraw the report at any point when their own students and staff were held by the police overnight. There are no reasons that would justify abandoning your students and staff.
The university has become a place where we are profiled, followed, and arrested.
0.7 asks everyone in Dutch academia to stand in solidarity with the student encampment Nijmegen and Radboud staff for Palestine. You can do so by speaking out, by signing this letter drafted by Radboud employees, by joining the protest this friday.
We should never allow our CvB’s to imagine themselves as our bosses, as autocrats of our institutions, as academia themselves. They are facilitating staff, and they should be forced out of office the moment they turn against the very values that academia is built on.
To the CvB’s, we want to reiterate some measures that should have been taken long ago:
- No cops on campus
- No filing of reports for property damage with the police
- No sending cops after university staff and students
- Facilitate protests on campus
- Cut the ties!
In solidarity,