Israel detains and abuses Palestinian feminist scholar

APRIL 26, 2024

LABOUR HUB

On April 18th, respected Palestinian feminist scholar Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian was arrested in Jerusalem on suspicion of incitement to violence. Academics from around the world condemned her arrest as an attack on academic freedom of expression.  Penelope Quinton expresses her alarm.

Professor  Shalhoub-Kevorkian, who is the Lawrence D. Biele Chair in Law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and also the Global Chair in Law at Queen Mary University in East London, was detained in April in Jerusalem and charged with incitement, based on her research in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Professor Shalhoub-Kervorkian’s work is exceptional. When I started researching for my Doctorate, her work helped me understand how we humans process suffering and develop strategies to cope with living in long-term conflict situations.

In the past my role has been to collect affidavits from Palestinian university students detained by Israeli forces. The students routinely describe being deprived of their clothes, being beaten and being put in stress positions for hours.

When Professor Shalhoub-Kevorkian was detained, I knew she was in danger of coming to harm. I called the US embassy in Tel Aviv and begged them to do a welfare check – they refused.

The suppression of Palestinian knowledge creation is institutionalised within Israel and it is this system of routinised violence that is being used to break a globally respected academic.

Her recent detention is a brutal attempt to silence her through inhuman and degrading treatment. She was handcuffed, strip-searched, deprived of clothing, verbally abused, denied her hypertension medication and only after her blood pressure reached very dangerous levels was she given access to her medicine in her bag.

Shivering with cold, she was given a soaking wet blanket that smelled of garbage and urine. She said: “The cold was terrible, my teeth were chattering. Even though the blanket smelled and it was wet, in the end I covered myself with it because I couldn’t stand the cold. Although I research these things, I never felt them on my flesh.” Both her hands and legs were shackled as she was led from prison to court.

Had the staff at the American embassy done their duty by one of their citizens, they could have prevented the Israeli state abusing Professor Shalhoub-Kevorkian in the way they have.

The atmosphere within Israel is making it extremely dangerous for academic staff and students to freely express non- or anti-Zionist positions, or even to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, where according to the International Court of Justice, it is plausible that a genocide is taking place. Academic freedom has come under sustained attack and those who dare criticise Israel’s war on Gaza are routinely threatened and silenced.

After what she was subjected to this, it is chilling that Professor Shalhoub-Kervorkian was summoned for further interrogation on Thursday April 25th.

Penelope Quinton is a journalist and Doctoral Candidate at King’s College London.