susan abulhawa | سوزان ابو الهوى @susanabulhawa
Today, the @OxfordUnion set the original version of my speech to private (see screenshot) and uploaded an edited version, one minute shorter, seemingly following zionist pressure. see their statement on the matter.
Such modification of my speech and censorship is unethical and contrary to the ideals they purport to uphold. this censorship and perversion of my remarks comes after the original YouTube video had garnered hundreds of thousands of views and thousands of comments in less than one week, which was apparently was bothersome to zionists.
Whereas the previous leadership of Ebrahim Osman-Mowafy withstood zionist bullying, his tenure ended in early December, when a new president took office. the usual zionist threats are working on him, it seems. as Palestinians struggle to make our voices heard in the midst of a genocide, it is particularly egregious for the @OxfordUnion to bow to the very same forces committing that genocide. it was bad enough to have been in the same room with genocide apologists and individuals who’ve actually murdered or caused the murder of people, but to find out that my speech has been edited to cater to them is intolerable.
The @OxfordUnion has not seen fit to issue statements, retractions, or other forms of censorship in the case of some truly abhorrent individuals that they’ve hosted in the past, such as Tony Robinson or Tzipi Hotovely. Robinson was sent to prison for repeatedly inciting violence against refugees and Muslims, Hotovely made public calls to genocide against Palestinians. her remarks were so vile that it provoked calls for her expulsion from the UK. and yet it was my speech that they saw fit to edit. why?
I demand the original speech be reinstated in its entirety as it was previously posted. for the record, thanks to http://web.archive.org, the originally posted version cannot be erased from the web: https://web.archive.org/web/20241213004436/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW5U_ZqGmZUthe…
·@OxfordUnion has cut out the following 5 parts, totaling 73 seconds:
1. 17 seconds 00:03:49 to 00:04:05
2. 20 seconds 00:08:38 to 00:08:57
3. 8 seconds 00:10:52 to 00:11:01
4. 22 seconds 00:11:49 to 00:12:12
Archived original: https://web.archive.org/web/20241213004436/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW5U_ZqGmZU…