The University of Seville’s Faculty of Law withdraws its venue from a lecture by Francesca Albanese
DATE
LOCATION
TARGETED PERSON/INSTITUTION
Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories; Red Universitaria por Palestina (RUxP); organising faculty members
DOMAIN/FIELD
RESPONSIBLE FOR BAN
Fernando Llano, Dean of the University of Seville’s Faculty of Law
In April 2024, the University of Seville’s Faculty of Law was due to host a lecture on 10 April by Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. The event was part of a Red Universitaria por Palestina initiative held at more than forty Spanish universities. The lecture was to focus in particular on her report “Anatomy of a Genocide” on the situation in Gaza.
A few days before the lecture, Dean Fernando Llano withdrew permission to use the faculty’s premises. He cited the rules on the use of university spaces, which exclude activities of a political nature. He also pointed to a discrepancy between the purpose stated in the booking, which focused on the humanitarian crisis, and the final poster, which used the word “genocide”.
The organisers and several faculty members denounced the decision as an attack on academic debate, and some called for the dean’s resignation. The lecture was instead hosted by the Faculty of Psychology of the same university, where it took place on 10 April under the title “La Universidad ante el Genocidio” (“The University in the Face of Genocide”).