The Rights Forum wins first battle in case against universities

The Rights Forum, which defends the interests of Palestinians, wants to know how the fourteen universities in the Netherlands are connected to companies and institutions in Israel, as well as to organisations said to propagate support for Israel. Of the fourteen universities, nine were facing off the foundation in court last week. They had to justify their partial unwillingness to process the information request.

This means that five universities are in the clear. Regarding the Delft University of Technology and the Open University, a term was exceeded somewhere in the procedure, so those cases are over. The three private universities (Nijmegen, Tilburg and VU Amsterdam) do not fall directly under the Open Government Act.

Unrest
The Rights Forum wishes to know about the institutional ties with organisations such as the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI) and the National Coordinator for Combating Anti-Semitism. All correspondence, meeting invitations, minutes and appointments are to be made public. The goal is to determine whether universities “contribute to human rights violations in Israel and its systematic repression, discrimination, expropriation and exclusion of Palestinians”.

This request has caused significant unrest. The universities would like to decline part of the request on grounds of principle. “Homing in on a specific group of citizens, including staff, students and alumni at our universities, causes feelings of unsafety, unfairness and discrimination”, a joint statement reads (in Dutch, Ed.). 

Is the request antisemitic, as critics claim? Not at all, says Gerard Jonkman, director of The Rights Forum. “Our open government expert and legal representative are also Jewish. We only want information about the ties to organisations that repress criticism of the state of Israel. This also includes Christian and secular organisations, such as Christians for Israel and the Netherlands Industries for Defence and Security Foundation. We’re not asking anything about organisations such as Een ander Joods geluid and Gate 48.”

Study ruling
Universities of the Netherlands, the umbrella organisation of Dutch universities, confirms that the court has ruled in favour of the Rights Forum. “Universities will study the ruling and revisit the subject”, states a spokesperson for the association.

Their having to process the request doesn’t mean that they’ll be supplying the requested information. They have refused to consider the request up until this point, but now that they’re forced to consider it, they can still say that they will not supply the information. In this case, The Rights Forum will take matters to court once again.