ANU has decided to expel student activist, Palestine supporter and participant in the encampment, Beatrice Tucker, for comments they made in an ABC radio interview.
Bea will be unable to complete their course and is banned from setting foot on the ANU campus.
They are the first student expelled from a university on political grounds for many years.
Bea has been targeted over an interview on 30 April about ANU’s Gaza solidarity encampment where they expressed solidarity with the Palestinian resistance and their right to resist Israel’s occupation—a right recognised under international law.
Bea said, “Hamas deserves our unconditional support … Not because I agree with their strategy, [I’m in] complete disagreement with that.”
As Solidarity went to press more than 1000 people had signed a statement opposing the expulsion. Sixty students joined a snap rally to protest the expulsion outside the ANU Chancelry.
As the statement puts it, “Bea does not deserve to be expelled for standing in solidarity with Palestinian resistance.
“The ANU’s actions against Tucker are an intolerable attack on student protest, academic freedom and freedom of speech.
“It is ANU’s ties to Israel’s genocide that are the problem, not those challenging them.”
The decision is subject to an appeal to an internal university disciplinary body.
Add your name to the statement here.
