University of Antwerp Workers in Solidarity with Palestine
We are an expanding group of faculty members at the University of Antwerp - comprising administrative personnel, PhD candidates, postdoctoral scholars, and professors - who firmly oppose all forms of colonization within and beyond Palestine. We are dedicated to upholding UAntwerpen’s principles regarding ethics and integrity, which state that "respect for human rights is fundamental to the university’s societal role." In this regard, we strive to ensure that our university fosters anticolonial goals focused on breaking down hierarchies and borders.
We are affiliated with the larger Palestine Interuniversity Network (PIN), which connects universities throughout Belgium. Additionally, we express our solidarity with various academic and non-academic groups at our institution, including UAntwerp for Palestine and Antwerp for Palestine.
UAntwerp Workers
for Palestine
Debating Development is a public platform for reflection & dialogue on global development. Through this series, the University of Antwerp encourages its community and the wider public to engage in conversations on contemporary societal issues, particularly their global dimension.
Each year we address a different overarching theme. We explore the broad theme through various panel discussions that bring in different perspectives. Each topic begins with a presentation by a renowned speaker. One or more discussants set the stage for further conversation or debate. At the end, the audience has time for questions and comments.
Everyone is welcome to attend these conversations. University of Antwerp also offers the series as an elective for students of all faculties. Debating Development is part of the university-wide, interdisciplinary courses
This year's Debating Development series, “Resisting Erasure”, uses Palestine as a lens to examine interconnected struggles against dispossession, ecological destruction, criminalisation, surveillance, and the suppression of histories and knowledge. Bringing together scholars, organisers, artists, and legal thinkers, the series explores how erasure operates—and how communities resist through memory, cultural production, land defence, abolitionist organising, and collective survival. It asks how solidarity can honour difference while helping build futures grounded in justice, dignity, and liberation.
Join us every Tuesday evening from 6 to 8 pm, from 13th October to 15th December 2026, for a series of 9 lectures on this theme!
Debating Development
Extending support to SRFTI students
Activity of the month
We are deeply concerned by reports of violence following students’ opposition to an event organised on the campus of Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute (SRFTI) by the Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat (a national level consumer organisation), linked to the RSS (an Indian right-wing, Hindutva volunteer paramilitary organization,) on 27 September 2026. Students’ accounts describe physical assaults, threats, and pursuit into the campus library. The chronology shared with us further alleges sexual harassment, threats of rape against women students, delays in emergency medical assistance, and obstruction of an ambulance carrying injured students. We condemn violence and intimidation against students and call for an independent investigation into these grave allegations.
Academic freedom requires more than the continuation of classes. It requires conditions in which students and staff can question authority, organise collectively, and create without fear. Campus security must safeguard these freedoms. An institution’s responsibility to protect its students includes listening to their concerns and respecting their participation in decisions that affect them. We stand in solidarity with their peaceful protest and recognise their demand for leadership accountability.
This year's Debating Development series, “Resisting Erasure”, uses Palestine as a lens to examine interconnected struggles against dispossession, ecological destruction, criminalisation, surveillance, and the suppression of histories and knowledge. Bringing together scholars, organisers, artists, and legal thinkers, the series explores how erasure operates—and how communities resist through memory, cultural production, land defence, abolitionist organising, and collective survival. It asks how solidarity can honour difference while helping build futures grounded in justice, dignity, and liberation.
13 October – 15 December | Tuesdays, 18:00–20:00
Room S.C. 204, Stadscampus
Free & open to all (Registration required)
Media highlights
“Honouring Francesca Albanese and Noura Erakat creates obligations. Universities cannot celebrate their work while continuing collaborations with institutions involved in the occupation, apartheid and genocidal violence that both laureates have extensively documented. That is why we call on Belgian universities to terminate all collaborations with Israeli institutions and companies involved in violations of international law.”
SUE
Prof. of Political Ecology, UAntwerp
Prof. of Political Ecology, UAntwerp
Prof. of Anthropology,
KU Leuven
“For too long, ‘complexity’ has been used as an excuse for passivity. But the genocide and educide in Gaza have made clear that universities and researchers must take a position. This is no longer a technical issue; it is a matter of legal obligations and moral responsibility.”
Prof. of Social Sciences, Hasselt University
“After decades of Israeli colonialism and oppression, the genocide in Gaza has produced what we are witnessing today: a fundamental shift within the academic community. Students, researchers and professors are no longer willing to accept that universities defend human rights merely in rhetoric while maintaining institutional relationships that contribute to impunity and help normalise and legitimise structural violence.”
Universiteit Antwerpen collaborates on 9 current projects, as well as 21 past projects, with 23 Israeli partners.
Source: www.academiccomplicity.eu
Rima Hassan, member of the European Parliament, has extended her support for the encampment at the University of Antwerp.
Professor Noura Erakat, from the Rutgers University, who was recently awarded an honorary degree in Development Studies by UAntwerpen, has extended her support for the encampment at the University of Antwerp.
Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who was recently awarded an honorary degree jointly by UAntwerpen, UGent, VUB, has extended her support for the encampment at the University of Antwerp.
Message from Rima Hassan
Message from Prof. Noura Erakat
Message from Francesca Albanese
...while the ties continue
...even when we had voices of support coming from all directions
While you're here,
do not forget the encampment that the university forcefully evicted
"Tents are unacceptable, but collaborations with institutions and companies involved in occupation, apartheid, and genocidal violence in Palestine prove to be manageable."
UA Workers 4 Palestine