The extraordinary cloister of the University of Barcelona (UB) approved yesterday to raise to the team and governing council of the university the motion of Universities with Palestine and the Palestine UB Group in which it is requested “the rupture of institutional and academic relations ” with Israeli institutions that have not expressed their opposition to the violence in Gaza. With this approval, the student camp that had been in place since Monday, with around 80 tents and 200 people, would have been lifted. But the resurgence of attacks in Rafah with a “brutal offensive” has led the demonstrators to change their minds and continue their presence in the cloister indefinitely. As do, on the other hand, students from Valencia, the Basque Country, Madrid and Andalusia.
This determination, however, could make it difficult to hold the Catalan elections next Sunday, since the historic building of the UB will be the electoral college.
The student assembly assures that it will not interfere in the electoral process and proclaims itself a democratic movement. They warn the rector of a possible eviction. “We insist, we do not want to interrupt the citizens’ vote”, they point out in a statement.
For their part, UB sources have pointed out that the management of the university itself has no powers in matters of security during the voting, as it is limited to ceding the campus space for the electoral process. “This is an electoral center as can be a school or a civic center”, they point out, which must follow the rules of the Electoral Board, which, according to the management of the campus, must assess the issue.
The Barcelona Board had not received any official communication yesterday from the rector’s office to make it aware of possible interference in the elections. Thus, political demonstrations near polling stations are prohibited the day before and on the day of voting. The day of reflection will be on Saturday, so, according to Board sources, in the event that political demonstrations are considered, there will be no previous actions.
Rector Joan Guàrdia has shown himself in favor of the student mobilizations. In a statement he recalled that it is not the first university faculty to approve a document of this nature and that the current situation in Gaza cannot be treated indifferently by the university and that from the first moment it has helped the abused educational community. “We will maintain our commitment to attend to the educational community that is distressed by this unbearable barbarity”, he underlines.
The council’s motion was not unanimously approved. It came out with 59 votes in favor, 23 against and 37 abstentions. In the same motion, it is requested to break relations with universities, research centers and other Israeli institutions that have not expressed their rejection of the violence in Gaza, “as a mechanism of pressure on the State of Israel until end the genocide and eradicate the Israeli apartheid system and end the colonization of Palestine”.
It is also urged not to contribute to the “perpetuation of the Israeli occupation of Palestine” and demands that the Spanish Government and the Generalitat break relations with Israel, starting with the end of the arms trade.
“It is time for the UB to be faithful to its principles and put an end to complicit silence in the face of the Palestinian genocide at the hands of Israel.”
Some of the members of the faculty rejected the motion considering that it is not up to the university to take a decision in this conflict, alluding to the Organic Law of the University System (Losu), and they consider that it would be a mistake for the UB to make it their own this document to include words like genocide or apartheid.
The Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, and the Minister of Youth and Children, Sira Rego, have celebrated the student mobilizations that are spreading across Spanish campuses. Riego maintained yesterday, in the face of warnings, that “they are defending the Palestinian people, the immediate ceasefire and the genocide of that Palestinian people”.
