The European Legal Support Center (ELSC) has filed a claim for discrimination on behalf of its client, Palestinian best-selling author susan abulhawa, against the Oxford Union Debating Society for unlawful and unethical editing the recording of her speech at the Oxford Union in a November 2024 debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Oxford Union, which parades itself as \u201cthe world\u2019s most prestigious debating society\u201d and boasts of being \u201cthe last bastion of free speech,\u201d has refused to restore the full record of abulhawa\u2019s speech\u2014an important historical record\u2014in which she criticised Zionism and the injustice of having to \u2018debate\u2019 the worth of Palestinian lives. This act of erasure comes at a time when Palestinian writers and journalists are being targeted and murdered in unprecedented numbers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The legal claim states that the Oxford Union\u2019s decision to cut five key sections of her speech directly discriminates against abulhawa on the basis of her Palestinian ethnicity and indigenous identity, and anti-Zionist beliefs, in blatant violation of her right to freedom of expression. Their refusal to reverse their decision further violates the Union\u2019s own protocols and procedures, as an internal decision of the Standing Committee, which decides these matters, voted to restore the full speech. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The censorship of abulhawa\u2019s speech may also constitute a breach of contract, copyright infringement, and defamation; and further claims are being considered accordingly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Speech They Tried to Silence<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n On 28 November 2024, susan abulhawa delivered her address at the Oxford Union debate on the motion This house believes Israel is an apartheid state engaged in genocide<\/em>. Her speech contributed the proposition\u2019s overwhelming victory\u2014278 vote to 59\u2014and the video of her speech, originally posted online in whole by the Oxford Union, garnered a quarter of a million views in just one week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, on 12 December 2024, the Oxford Union quietly deleted the original and replaced it with an altered version, cutting nearly two minutes of her words without her consent. They concurrently issued a vaguely worded statement citing \u201cpotential legal concerns,\u201d which the claim argues are utterly unfounded. In reality, it is claimed, this was a discriminatory, politically motivated decision to appease those offended by her truth-telling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Two of the deletions described well-documented crimes committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian and Lebanese civilians: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cand in the 1980s and \u201990s, Israeli soldiers had left <\/em>booby-trapped toys<\/em><\/a> in southern Lebanon that exploded when excited children picked them up.\u201d<\/em>
\u201c\u2026if Palestinians were systematically raping Jewish doctors, patients, and other captives with hot metal rods, jagged and electrified sticks, and fire extinguishers, sometimes raping to death, <\/em>as happened with Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh<\/em><\/a> <\/em>and others\u201d<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n