A pro-Palestine student group has criticised the University of Edinburgh’s “shameful” Senior Leadership Team for not providing a permanent location for a memorial dedicated to Palestinians killed in Gaza.
Taking to social media, Edinburgh University Justice for Palestine Society (EUJPS) claimed that the idea of a permanent space was “floated” at a meeting with university administrators but later retracted.
As part of their 34-day encampment in the Old College Quad, the Edinburgh University Justice for Palestine Society (EUJPS) created a “Martyr’s Memorial” in June to commemorate Palestinian victims of genocide.
As of 1 October, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported that over 41,500 people have been killed in Gaza since the 7 October attacks in Israel, which resulted in more than 1,200 deaths and 251 hostages being taken.
University staff took down the memorial and threw photos of Palestinians who had been killed in the conflict into a nearby bin after the group decamped in June.
In an Instagram post, EUJPS called the move “disrespectful and sickening”.
A university spokesperson told The Student at the time that:
“The posters were taken down as part of our standard operations in managing our spaces.”
EUJPS and the wider community quickly rebuilt the memorial, which was kept up by the university until mid-August.
The new memorial featured a doctor’s coat, provided by Health Workers for Palestine, with the names of healthcare workers killed in the conflict written on it.
In a recent X post chronicling the events, the group said Deputy Secretary (Students) Lucy Evans had notified them that this memorial would be “gently” removed.
The memorial was once again rebuilt by the group in September before being “instantly” taken down.
In a leaked email extract included in the X post, Vice-Principal (Students) Professor Colm Harmon suggested an archival record containing “testimony from all voices” rather than a memorial.
At a previous meeting in September, the university’s leadership cited the memorial’s proximity to the War Memorial and concerns that it created a “threatening” space for some Jewish students as factors behind their decision, according to EUJPS.
In a statement to The Student, the group said there were “racial double standards” between the university’s response to the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
They quoted one student who said:
“There was a memorial for Ukrainian students in The Chaplaincy. Why doesn’t the university commemorate Palestinian death in the same way?”
“The active denial of a space for grief is unsettling, outraging, but in some ways entirely fitting.”
The university’s chaplaincy held a “vigil for peace” in February 2023 to mark a year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In late 2023, the university library also hosted a joint exhibition to commemorate 36 Ukrainian students who were killed following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The touring exhibition highlighted the students’ stories through portrait images and their posthumous university certificates.
In a statement to The Student, Professor Harmon said the university does not have permanent memorial sites for any other ongoing conflicts.
He noted that The Chaplaincy hosted a multi-faith vigil last week to mark the first anniversary of the conflict to allow “those affected by events to come together” as it had with the conflict in Ukraine.
Referencing the Senior Leadership Teams discussions with EUJPS, he said:
“We view protest and the impact of protest on university practice to be an important part of the life of a university, and the potential to reflect this in a curated digital archive in our university collection, mindful that any archive would gather testimony from all voices, was raised.”
“We respect the choice of EUJPS to not engage further in discussions on this option.”
Image provided by Meher Vepari