Conference postponement
14th April 2015
14th April 2015
Dear Friends,
A hearing was held in the High Court today on our
application for an injunction to compel Southampton University to host our
conference. Unfortunately, the court sided with the university, despite the
strengths of our case. We will continue pursuing justice for both Palestine and
for freedom of speech. We are now contemplating the best way of pursuing an
appeal against this decision.
Our painstaking efforts to locate a private venue have
also not borne fruit. We have exhausted all possible venues in Southampton from
private to community owned spaces. Several venues confirmed our booking
initially as an alternative, and then cancelled. In this light, we cannot risk
receiving you here only to have an alternative venue cancel precipitously.
It is with great regret, therefore, that we must postpone
the conference International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy,
Responsibility and Exceptionalism. We
have an amazing programme and we will immediately start planning for its
execution. Please cancel your travel arrangements as soon as possible.
It has been a very difficult few weeks. We have had to
manage both the internal process in the university, launch a legal suit, handle
finances and budgets, manage public collective statements, and re-book speaker
accommodations, cancelled by the university without any notice.
We would like to thank Keren Ben-Dor who has stepped in
and done tremendous work in organising accommodations and communicating with
everybody. We also thank our amazing
legal team: Mark McDonald, Shivani Jegarajah, Mohamed Elmaazi and Paul Heron,
for their strenuous work and fabulous argument.
Last but not least we would like to thank you all for
supporting this conference, and for bearing with us through a period of great
uncertainty.
We will meet in the conference very soon. The pursuit of
justice and peace in Palestine continues, and we must keep solidarity in the
face of this disgraceful failure on the part of Southampton University. We must continue to protest publicly against
the university decision, and use the moral strength of our cause to ensure
freedom of speech and academic debate - for our own sakes as well as for
others. We are confident that in time, we will, indeed, prevail.