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Ali's hearing about his dorm room is tomorrow 8am. We will submit the petition tomorrow at 7am. PLEASE SIGN HERE ASAP: http://www.petitionspot.com/petitio
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Running updates of the campaign here: http://freespeech2008.wordpress.com
Sign English petition here: http://www.petitionspot.com/petitio
עצומה בעברית כאן: http://www.atzuma.co.il/petition/fr
Contact the campaign here: free.speech.huji@gmail.com
To find out what this about and what you can do to help, keep reading..
הסבר בעברית: http://freespeech2008.wordpress.com
What is this about?
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According to Haaretz (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages
When the president left the library, Ali was assaulted by security guards, who questioned him for three hours before serving him with a demand to appear before the discplinary committee of the university, on suspicion of "inappropriate conduct". This charge can potentially lead to Ali's suspension from the university. The guards also confiscated Ali's student card, which restricts his access to essential university services, such as, indeed, the library.
Later on this week, Ali came home to the dorms to find his room broken into, with political sticker torn off and the door handle vandalized. He submitted a complaint to the security staff, and was visited in the morning by the manager of the dorms, Mr Yitzhak Hofy, and his staff. They made no mention of the break-in, and instead proceded to inform Ali that his halls contract was ended, on the feeble ground that a shisha pipe was found in his room and his walls had posters on it - admittedly an infringement of dorms regulations but a fairly light and common one.
Ali needs to evict the room by Wednesday, November 11. The date for the hearing had not yet been set.
What is our stance?
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We believe that the assault on Ali's freedom and academic future is purely political and has little to do with university regulations. Ali is an elected representative and chairman of the Arab Student Commitee, a legal and registered organization set up to assist Arab students who feel underrepresented by the ordinary Student Union. The University sees the Committee - political and committed as it is - as a threat, and the unprecdented attack on Ali is both a result and a proof of that; and while Ali's comments on Peres's record may sound harsh to some and even innaccurate to others, he was perfectly within his rights to make them. Free speech, even angry speech, should not etch a question mark on a young man's professional and academic future.
What are the demands?
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We demand that Ali's student card be restored, his dorms contract reinstated, and all proceedings against him will be stopped. We also demand that the University apologizes to Ali for this gross impingement of his freedom and dignity, and that the incident be struck off from his disciplinary and academic record.
We also demand that the President of Israel and the Peres Peace Centre - both ostenstibly committed to democratic and liberal values - make clear their position on this outrage.
What can we do?
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1. Spread the word!
2. Sign out petition! http://www.petitionspot.com/petitio
3. Visit our website frequently to learn more and to stay in touch: http://freespeech2008.wordpress.com
We welcome everyone and anyone, of any political persuaison, Left, Right, Centre, Green, religious, secular, atheists agnostics muslims jews christians and anyone at all. Free speech is not a luxury - it's a necessity. Free speech is not a privilege for the "right-thinking" or even the "nice" or "polite" - it's the one tool that any person or group have at their disposal to work for change.
Suppression of one person is the suppression of each and every one of us.
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