The administration at York University has recently announced that organizers of Israeli Apartheid Week events will be forced to pay “security fees” to hold their events on campus or their room bookings, which were made more than a month ago, will be cancellled. Please take a moment to support SAIA@York by taking the action they outline in their public statement:
Public Statement About Israeli Apartheid Week
Room Cancellation at York University
On Thursday the 3rd of March 2011, less than one week before the beginning of the Seventh Annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), the administration of York University informed the IAW organizers of a change to a room booking which had been made over one month in advance. The message from the administration was clear- the room will be cancelled unless the group pays “security fees” to hire police to be present during the event. This decision was based on A “security assessment” by York University. Despite repeated requests from the IAW organizers, the York administration refused to explain what the security considerations involved, and did not share any information as to what or who is the source of the security threat.
Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA-York), the organizer of the event, refused to pay the “security fees” for the following reasons:
i) Accessibility: These fees will put a significant strain on the very limited budget of the student group.
ii) Unreasonable demand: SAIA-York does not see any need for police presence. IAW activities took place on York campus for the past 3 years without incident, and there is no basis to believe that this year will be different. This is especially the case given that the three speakers at the event are two professors, one of whom teaches at York, and the third is a York student. Furthermore, it is unjust for SAIA-York to be asked to pay to protect itself from harassment done to its members and supporters by outside aggressors.
This last minute condition imposed by the York administration is consistent with the recent pattern where the Israel Lobby groups pressure educational institutions to raise the costs for holding Palestine advocacy events. Last month, Mohawk College presented a similar ultimatum for allowing a lecture by Dr. Norman Finklestein to proceed as planned on its campus. Unfortunately, by imposing the security fees and putting a price tag on freedom of speech and inquiry, York University has become the most recent institution to use this silencing tactic. This of course comes as no surprise. As demonstrated by a number of incidents in the past, documented by publications and reports, York University’s commitment to freedom of speech is almost always limited when it comes to Palestine.
SAIA-York calls on supporters of Israeli Apartheid Week and everyone who supports freedom of speech and inquiry to contact York President Mamdouh Shoukri. Help explain to York University Administration the importance of freedom of speech, and that freedom of speech should not be treated as a commodity granted or denied based on the ability to pay. Please, make your voice and ours heard by following the steps below:
Step One
Copy/paste the sample letter below (feel free to modify) into the body of an email.
Dear President Mamdouh Shoukri
I am writing to communicate my outrage and sorrow at your recent decision to cancel the room booking for Students Against Israeli Apartheid @ York unless they pay “security fees”.
While safety considerations are very important, the attempt to impose the fees on a student club is unacceptable. It is more so when the University refuses to disclose the reasons for its assessment.
The university is meant to be a space of free debate and discussion. By imposing the fees, you are restricting the margins of free speech and limiting it to those who have the means to pay. This is contrary to the values on which the university is built.
This last minute cancelation is consistent with the recent pattern OF Israel lobby groups pressuring educational institutions to raise the costs for holding Palestine advocacy events. Last month, Mohawk College administration presented a similar condition for allowing a lecture by Dr. Norman Finklestein to proceed as planned on its campus. Unfortunately, by imposing the security fees and putting a price tag on freedom of speech and inquiry, you are showing that York University has little respect for values that are considered the basic tenets of academic work.
I urge you to cancel the “security fees” and resist all political pressure to cancel or restrict student activities on campus.
Yours,
Step Two
For the subject line, write: York shamefully puts a price tag on free expression.
Step Three
Copy/paste the emails below into your to: field
presidnt@yorku.ca; mshoukri@yorku.ca; rjtiffin@yorku.ca; normasue@yorku.ca
and cc: SAIA@York:
saiayork@riseup.net
Step Four
Hit send!
Step Five
Use the sharing links in this post to encourage your friends and networks to do the same!
Posted by psnedmonton 
CPCCA: Follow the Money
July 29, 2011An excellent article in Macleans magazine on the secretive funding behind the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism.
Follow the money
An MP inquiry into anti-Semitism vowed to be open and independent. Its shadowy funding says otherwise.
When a group of Conservative, Liberal and NDP MPs formed the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism in 2009, they decided to work outside of the normal structures of Parliament and raise their own money to hold a conference and conduct an inquiry. But transparency would be crucial, they said, pledging on their website to “voluntarily disclose all sources of funding” and remain independent of the Conservative government, advocacy groups and “Jewish community organizations.” By the time they released their report this month, however—warning that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Canada—that vow of full disclosure seemed to be forgotten, and the coalition appeared closely tied to the government.
Conservative MP Scott Reid, chairman of the coalition’s inquiry steering committee, said the CPCCA promised anonymity to private donors, who contributed a total of $127,078. As for their relationship with the government, the coalition accepted $451,280 from the department of Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who sat on the CPCCA’s inquiry steering committee as an ex officio member. The coalition’s key conclusion that a “new anti-Semitism” tends to focus on criticism of Israel echoes Kenney’s long-standing position.
Perhaps surprisingly, the MPs’ ethics code appears not to oblige them to reveal the names of their backers. The Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner didn’t comment specifically on the CPCCA, but told Maclean’s the “Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons” requires only that individual MPs disclose money they receive—not MPs acting as a group. “There is no mechanism within the code for a group of MPs to disclose a collective gift,” the commissioner’s office said. The coalition knows the rules. “The ethics commissioner doesn’t cover [the CPCCA] because the donations went to an entity, not to an MP,” said Mike Firth, Reid’s executive assistant.
If the CPCCA’s private backers remain unnamed, the government’s support is a matter of record. Still, the arrangement between Kenney’s department and the coalition isn’t straightforward. The grant was paid to a third party, a non-governmental organization called the Parliamentary Centre, a not-for-profit group that helps legislatures around the world, mainly in developing countries, to build their capacity. The centre took on a narrowly limited role for the CPCCA, acting as the recipient of both the Citizenship and Immigration grant and private contributions. As a registered charity, it was able to issue tax receipts to those anonymous donors.
Citizenship and Immigration refused to release its full agreement with the centre. A summary description says the grant was provided to the centre to “host the Ottawa Conference for Combating Anti-Semitism.” That three-day conference was put on last fall by the CPCCA; the centre played, at most, a supporting role. “There was government funding that was earmarked for this particular conference, and we were approached because we had NGO status, and charitable status, and had the systems in place to manage donor funding,” said centre spokeswoman Petra Andersson-Charest. “We were not involved in designing or managing the subject matter that was discussed,” added Ivo Balinov, senior expert in parliamentary development at the centre.
Firth said most of the grant money went to pay expenses of conference participants, including visiting parliamentarians and experts. The coalition also held 10 days of hearings in 2009 and 2010 on Parliament Hill, gathering testimony from dozens of witnesses concerned about anti-Semitism. The CPCCA did not invite outspoken critics of Israel’s stance toward the Palestinians to testify. Its final conclusions were faulted by some for blurring the distinction between anti-Semitism and legitimate criticism of Israeli government policy.
If the coalition’s findings were controversial, its funding mostly escaped attention. But it’s far from typical. MPs normally work within their own office budgets, or through official House committees, which are of course paid for by Parliament. The CPCCA’s broad membership largely insulated it from partisan scrutiny. Along with well-known Conservatives like Reid and Manitoba MP Candice Hoeppner, the MPs who joined included prominent Liberals such as interim party leader Bob Rae, and veteran New Democrats like Peter Stoffer and Pat Martin. That opposition support, and close compatibility with Kenney, made it unlikely the coalition’s financing, however unusual, would be criticized from within political circles. It seems any questions about this shadowy new model for MPs to tackle a policy issue will have to come from outside.
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