Take one minute and send a letter to public editors at the Toronto Star and Globe & Mail.

Both the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star have treated the UofT Law withdrawal of an offer of employment to human rights scholar Dr Valentina Azarova  as an isolated scandal of procedural interference, obscuring the broader and escalating climate of silencing regarding Palestine of which this is just one manifestation.

Background

Over 1,400 lawyers and academics around the world recently signed a statement in regard to  University of Toronto  Law’s withdrawal of an offer of employment to human rights scholar Dr Valentina Azarova, after a judge complained about Dr. Azarova’s research on Israel’s occupation policies. This letter speaks to the wider and intensifying climate of silencing regarding Palestine of which it is a clear manifestation  

Signatories included Angela Davis, Judith Butler, Richard Falk, UN Experts and Special Rapporteurs, and a former Judge ad hoc on the International Court of Justice.

Al Jazeera published an op-ed about this repression of speech and scholarship in regard to Palestine, along with the Open Letter.

Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star – the two major Canadian publications that have reported on the University of Toronto Law scandal – have refused we understand to publish the open letter itself or articles or op-eds about its content.

Rather both the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star have treated the UofT Law incident as an isolated scandal of procedural interference, making obscure the broader and escalating climate of silencing regarding Palestine of which this is just one manifestation. The similarities between these two major Canadian media in their coverage shows how thoroughly the artificial consensus on Palestine is maintained.

Like the CBC's recent erasure of the word Palestine and subsequent apology for using the word Palestine, both the public and private media show consistency in ignoring, distracting  and even erasure in regard to news regarding Palestine.