Swedes call for academic boycott of Israel

More than 200 students, professors and lecturers across Sweden have signed on to a growing academic boycott call demanding that Swedish universities not participate in any academic cooperation with Israeli educational institutions. They also called on the Swedish government to “act [towards] the cessation of the [European Union’s] research support to Israel.”

The public boycott call, initiated by the Action group for the Boycott of Israel at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, follows similar boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns across Europe and the world — including the recent move by London student unions to support the boycott, as well as the nation-wide academic boycott move in South Africa after the University of Johannesburg’s severing of ties with Ben Gurion University in March. The action group’s call adds:

The boycott is not aimed at individuals but against institutions. So far no Israeli academic institution has dissociated itself from Israel’s apartheid policy or the discrimination of Palestinians in Israel. Therefore all collaboration with Israeli academic institutions should be stopped, the signatories say. [The action group] demands that KTH shall cancel its ongoing agreement with Technion, the leading Israeli technical university. Technion has close collaboration with the Israeli military forces. As an example it may be mentioned that Technion is developing new types of drones for the destruction of Palestinian houses … Researchers of Technion act as advisors to Israel’s military and the university collaborates closely with Israel’s biggest weapons producer Elbit.

A network of activists, students and academics in European Union countries doing work to support the cultural and academic BDS call can be found here: www.epacbi.eu. For further information on the KTH action group, visit www.psabi.net.

Comments

Technion & military

Permalink Mohammed replied on Tue, 10/04/2011 - 06:19

Technion even boasts about its ties to the military - and all the other things it does to stop global freedom fighters in their war against evil Western values. Check this video out. It speaks for itself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...