The Human Rights Society

Official statement on recent defacement of posters on campus

Some time between Tuesday and Wednesday this week some of our posters on campus were defaced by unknown persons. The content of the defacement appeared to be a direct response to the Palestinian Solidarity Society’s most recent anti-Israel posters, and contained a strong political and religious message. The targets in this incident were advertisements for our hugely successful presentation by world-famous anti-execution campaigners Sunny Jacobs and Peter Pringle.

It should be noted by the perpetrators that the Human Rights Society has no official position on the Israel/Palestine conflict aside from noting the Human Rights and humanitarian abuses that routinely occur in the region. We have no mandate to either condemn or support either side in the conflict and we have never hosted any event which could lead anyone to think otherwise. We feel this was a grossly misdirected attack and are left to consider it a product of ignorance rather than malice; we are prepared to accept an apology on these grounds.

The nature of the deliberate and personal attack, however, strikes at the heart of what we as a society hold dear. We are collectively angered by this occurrence not because it has harmed us, and not because we disagree with the message contained within the offending material, but because it constitutes an assault on our dearly-held freedom of expression. We feel the right to express oneself individually or collectively is something which can only be curtailed in the very gravest of circumstances. The tactic of defacement and the removal of other societies posters is shameful and to be met with contempt.

In the spirit of this belief, we hereby extend an invitation to the perpetrators to justify their actions in person, and we are even willing to host a debate on the human rights issues of the aforementioned conflict.

Signed, the Human Rights Society Executive

Seana Moran, George Kaar, Cormack O’Laighin & Stephanie Furlong