Italian universities shut down debates on the "Stop Technion" academic boycott campaign

In late January 2016, several hundred scholars from some fifty Italian universities launched a call to suspend cooperation with the Technion, the Haifa-based Israel Institute of Technology, citing its close ties to the Israeli military and arms manufacturers such as Elbit Systems and Rafael. At least eight Italian universities, including the Polytechnics of Milan and Turin and the universities of Cagliari, Florence, Perugia, Rome and Turin, have agreements with the Technion. In line with the guidelines of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), signatories also pledged to refuse institutional cooperation with Israeli universities while continuing to work with Israeli colleagues individually. In the weeks that followed, attempts to discuss the campaign on Italian campuses ran into refusals from university authorities.

At Sapienza University of Rome, Rector Eugenio Gaudio told the Jewish community outlet Pagine Ebraiche on 23 February 2016 that science cannot be boycotted and that he would back government action to "boycott the boycotters", including possible criminal prosecution should Parliament move in that direction. He added that he had no intention of giving any space to what he called openly anti-Israeli fringes within the university. On 2 March, two student-organised Israeli Apartheid Week events were due to take place in the Department of Economics. The dean of the faculty, Giuseppe Ciccarone, said they had the support of neither the university nor the faculty, arguing that the authorisation request mentioned only a film screening about Gaza. According to the same outlet, the decision on a possible cancellation rested with the rector, who had been approached by the Israeli ambassador, Naor Gilon, and was consulting his closest collaborators.

On 7 March 2016, Academics for Palestine in Ireland published a letter of solidarity with the signatories of the "Stop Technion" call and the organisers of the cancelled events at Cagliari, Turin, Rome and Catania. The group stated that discussion of the academic boycott had become highly securitised on Italian campuses, and placed these cases alongside earlier ones, including the withdrawal of a venue for Ilan Pappé at Roma Tre in 2015. It urged Italian university authorities to reverse the cancellations, allow the debates to take place on campus and put an end to political interference so that universities remain spaces for free academic debate.