In March 2008, the Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance art exhibition that was held in the library of Tel Aviv University, was closed by the university before the planned time due to pressure from the Chinese embassy. A lawsuit filed by two Tel Aviv University students, demands that the University restore the exhibition for the remaining time, as was originally agreed by the exhibition’s organizers and the university.
The pretrial was held on Monday. The judge, Dr. Amiram Binyamini, required the defendant, Tel Aviv University, to show justification for the removal of the exhibition. He also asked to see photos of the pictures that were shown in the exhibition.
The Exhibition includes photos and paintings by Falun Gong practitioners, as well as testimonies of cases of persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
After the pretrial hearing, the plaintiffs’ lawyer Michael Sfard, said that the University had attempted to silence protest and that a public institution is obliged to uphold values of dialogue and discussion. He said that the court could not feel comfortable with a situation in which a university decides to censor and silence. Sfard is a prominent human rights lawyer in Israel.
“I think that the importance of this trial lies in its decision whether in a democratic country in general, and especially in an institution like the university, it is possible to let go of democratic values because of a tyrannical communist regime, or whether the values of freedom of expression and democracy are still the leading values”, said Yaniv Nitzan, one of the plaintiffs and an organizer of the exhibition.
Whilst the exhibition was showing, a public relations person who helped promote the exhibition received a death threat over the phone from an unknown person. He was told that if he keeps “helping Falun Gong” he would be killed.
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