{"id":9227,"date":"2026-09-16T15:33:46","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T13:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/?p=9227"},"modified":"2026-09-16T15:33:50","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T13:33:50","slug":"austrian-universities-are-trying-to-evade-new-freedom-of-information-law-shielding-complicity-in-israels-genocide-from-public-scrutiny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/de\/austrian-universities-are-trying-to-evade-new-freedom-of-information-law-shielding-complicity-in-israels-genocide-from-public-scrutiny\/","title":{"rendered":"Austrian Universities are trying to evade new Freedom of Information law – shielding complicity in Israel\u2019s genocide from public scrutiny"},"content":{"rendered":"

In collaboration with Palestine solidarity activists, student groups, university workers and lawyers organizing on the ground in Austria, the European Legal Support Center (ELSC) has been submitting freedom of information requests to some of the largest universities and research institutions<\/em> about their agreements and cooperation with Israeli public bodies, universities and companies, but have so far only received evasive and obstructive responses.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Austria’s new Freedom of Information Act (Informationsfreiheitsgesetz – IFG) took effect in September 2025 and declares information held by government bodies and quasi-governmental organisations to be in principle public information. It therefore grants the right to obtain any information from state authorities and public-sector organisations upon request, while strictly limiting confidentiality.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of a broader initiative to map institutional links and complicity across Europe<\/a>, we aim to obtain precise information about agreements and other forms of cooperation between several Austrian universities (including the University of Graz, the University of Vienna, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the University of Innsbruck) and Israeli  entities, including universities, state agencies and companies\u2013 and therefore filed several Freedom of Information (FOI) requests in accordance with the Austrian  Freedom of Information Act (Informationsfreiheitsgesetz – IFG) with clear delineation of the information we expect to access.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We requested access to internal recommendations and policy materials, including: resolutions, assessment and impact analysis documents, guidelines, internal memoranda and other documents that define, describe or discuss cooperation with Israeli universities, institutions or companies, whereby these materials directly or indirectly assess whether cooperation could be related to, contribute to or be influenced by the following: Human rights violations in Israel, Israel’s violations of international law, or measures that involve the oppression, discrimination, dispossession or exclusion of the Palestinian population.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to our requests, some of the universities we approached have imposed procedural hurdles to complicate access to information, apparently in an attempt to exhaust our time, will and energy in pursuing these requests. The obstacles have ranged from repeated back-and-forth correspondence to requiring the requests to be submitted in German, a strange requirement considering that requests can be filed by individuals who are neither citizens of nor residents in Austria.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 
The few universities that already provided an answer have relied on various, and often absurd, grounds to refuse or restrict access to the requested information. These include claims that searching for the information would impose an excessive administrative burden on the institution or the requested documents could contain personal data, trade secrets or other commercially sensitive information and thus cannot be disclosed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can therefore treat the evasion of granting access to documents and information, to be yet another way to shield Austrian academia’s complicity in genocide<\/a> and illegal repression of Palestine solidarity<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through our FOI requests we aim to assist local\/student movements to mobilise and pressure their universities<\/a> to end their complicity in Israel\u2019s ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people and their systematic and violent oppression by Israel. The student movements have already ended important collaborations<\/a> by doing this! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please contact us through our intake form<\/a>, if you or your group’s mobilisation efforts have faced repression and\/or if you want to pose FOI requests to your university.  <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In collaboration with Palestine solidarity activists, student groups, university workers and lawyers organizing on the ground in Austria, the European Legal Support Center (ELSC) has been submitting freedom of information requests to some of the largest universities and research institutions about their agreements and cooperation with Israeli public bodies, universities and companies, but have so far only received evasive and obstructive responses.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":9228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[208],"tags":[101,112],"test-2":[],"country":[92],"blog_categories":[],"class_list":["post-9227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-update","tag-academic-freedom","tag-anti-palestinian-racism","country-at"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":208,"label":"Update"}],"post_tag":[{"value":101,"label":"Academic freedom"},{"value":112,"label":"Anti-Palestinian Racism"}],"country":[{"value":92,"label":"Austria"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/elsc.support\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/KYR-FOI-Austrian-2-1024x576.png",1024,576,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Bashar","author_link":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/de\/author\/bashar\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":208,"name":"Update","slug":"update","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":208,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":208,"category_count":4,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Update","category_nicename":"update","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":101,"name":"Academic freedom","slug":"academic-freedom","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":101,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"Academic freedom under threat","parent":0,"count":31,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":112,"name":"Anti-Palestinian Racism","slug":"anti-palestinian-racism","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":112,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"Discrimination against Palestinians","parent":0,"count":63,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9229,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9227\/revisions\/9229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9227"},{"taxonomy":"test-2","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/test-2?post=9227"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=9227"},{"taxonomy":"blog_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_categories?post=9227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}