NEWSFLASH:
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY SEVERELY RESTRICTS
PALESTINIAN
CONFERENCE
MER -
MiddleEast.Org - 18 February - Washington: "In
twenty years with the media in Washington I've never experienced such
unreasonable restrictions and procedures" said one journalist, a slew
of Press Credentials to the White House, Congress, etc., dangling from
her neck chains as she stood out in the cold surrounded by Georgetown
University officials who refused her entry to the Intercultural Center
(ICC).
The event was the 5th annual Palestine Solidarity Movement Conference
-- no well-known speakers and certainly no one who is use to having any
serious security. "I saved these two days to be at the
conference" the reporter insisted before declaring in obvious
frustration that she was going to have a weekend vaction instead and
left in a huff.
The unusual maybe unprecedented restrictions for such a conference
totally barring any media with any recording devices or cameras of any
kind even if not used was apparently imposed on the student organizers
by Georgetown University under threat of not allowing their conference
to take place at the university. The PSM, well-known both for
passionate commitment to their cause as well as inexperience and
naivete in dealing with serious political and p.r. matters, apparently
agreed to the restrictions oblivious to how their conference was being
considerably restricted and undermined by those opposed to their
concerns.
Asked if their evening speakers welcomed media coverage the student
organizers could only shrug indicating that the University insisted
that they could not have any media with tape-recorders or cameras
allowed into the building where the speechs were going to be
given. This policy was in fact being visibly enforced by quite a
number plain clothes as well as uniformed police who challenged anyone
other than those students registered for the conference if they tried
to enter the usually open and public ICC.
The theme of the PSM conference this year as in the past is
"divestment" from "Apartheid Israel." A press conference and
opening speeches were given in a separate university building which the
media was allowed to attend. Many uniformed police plus
plain clothed university officials seemed to be standing guard for
something to happen; but in the end they outnumbered those few
who came to protest.
In the end all that happened was that three obviously right-wing Jewish
Israeli supporters, complete with skullcaps and in one case heavy beard
and prayer shawl, mildly and rather surprisingly meekly heckled for a
few seconds a few times and then during the Q@A session attempted to
repeat their obviously unfriendly questions from the floor. Since
it was the Jewish Sabbath they didn't even use the floor microphones
but rather mildly badgered for a short time the four speakers on the
stage at Gaston Hall until -- in what seemed a rehearsed and ritualized
way -- University officials went on stage and took the microphone,
taking over from the students it appeared, and after a few hesitations
told a few cops to escort one of the the three Jews from the Hall.
Conference organizers said they were expecting 500 or 600 persons to
attend the conference but the number who actually came seemed about
half that and in fact the entire balcony at Gaston Hall was closed off
and not used at all. Yet the pretense of importance was certainly
there including a kind of surreal 'media escort' procedure taking
journalists one by one from the main gate of the University to Gaston
Hall just a few steps away.
Despite the important subject and the Washington venue very few media
people were in attendance at the PSM conference to start with and the
organizers seemed more comfortable, and maybe more interested as well,
in talking to each other in a kind of reunion atmosphere rather than in
really truly having an impact -- as much as some of the speakers kept
referring to that unsuccessful theme.