The International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) condemns the ongoing assaults on academic institutions, faculty members, and students protesting the violence perpetrated by the Israeli government and its allies against the Palestinian people. In the USA, in some countries of the European Union, and elsewhere, we have witnessed a dramatic increase in repressive measures and illegal practices targeting students and faculty advocating for peace and justice amidst inhumane campaigns that violate human rights.

As an international academic organization and community, we firmly oppose all forms of repression, including censorship, termination of faculty positions as punishment for political dissent, the jailing of activists, the deportation of individuals with valid student visas, and all other forms of harassment that undermine the integrity of university spaces. 

Meanwhile, the death toll of students, teachers, and university professors, as well as the persistent, callous obliteration of educational infrastructure in Gaza, has amounted to, what the UN Experts Report in no uncertain terms identifies as, ‘scholasticide’.  In times like this, it is our role and duty as an academic community to oppose all forms of violence, repression, and injustice and to stand in solidarity with students, artists, university colleagues, and above all the people of Palestine. Theatre has always and in all places found its ways of challenging misinformation and injustice by speaking truth to power and in this time out of joint, we, its researchers and makers, cannot stay silent and cannot be silenced.