Limiting freedom of expression

A panel of academics and students will be joined by an international human rights lawyer to discuss the implications for society of placing limits on freedom of expression.

Lorde help us! Palestine, Politics, Performance and BDS, being held at the University of Auckland next week, will feature guest speaker Huwaida Arrat, renowned Palestinian-American human rights lawyer and founding member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).

She was the chair of the Free Gaza Movement the organization behind the Gaza Freedom Flotillas organized to break Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. She was aboard the 2008 Free Gaza boats as well as the 2010 flotilla that was raided by Israeli commandos.

Huwaida will critically reflect on the role of artists and their audiences within contentious political environments.

She will be joined by Jewish student activist Justine Sachs who, with Palestinian-Kiwi Nadia Abu-Shanab, wrote an open letter appealing to Kiwi musician Lorde, to join the artistic boycott of Israel.

The singer-songwriter cancelled her planned show in Tel Aviv days later, prompting an Israeli group Shurat HaDin to announce they would file a lawsuit in Jerusalem, suing Justine and Nadia for damages, under a controversial Israeli anti-boycott law.

The panel will be chaired by University of Auckland’s Associate Professor Nicholas Rowe, from Dance Studies Programme, with commentary by Associate Professor Campbell Jones, from Sociology.

Following the emergence of the Palestine Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACB), and the subsequent global Boycott Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, the panel will consider the implications for artists and audiences in New Zealand of legislation attempting to suppress these campaigns.

Lorde help us! Palestine politics, performance and the BDS
Wednesday 21 March
7-9pm
MLT1/303-G23
(Science Building)
University of Auckland.

ends

© Scoop Media