The UBC administration welcomed Israeli Occupation Forces onto our campus and allowed state agents with guns to intimidate our community. The UBC community is not afraid.

Take action:

1. Sign this open letter and share widely across UBC and Vancouver. Anyone can add their name.

2. Wear your keffiyeh on campus. #keffiyehoncampus

3. Sign the UBC Divest From Corporations Fueling Genocide and Occupation petition.

4. If you experienced interactions with police at UBC between Feb 10-16, report it.

5. If you are UBC staff, join Staff for Palestine.

Shareable Instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/ubcstaff4pal/p/DG2YEj0RQvK/?img_index=1

The University of British Columbia (UBC) Vancouver campus played host to the Invictus Games on February 14th, 2025. The Games serve as a public relations tool to glorify military institutions while obscuring the destructive realities of war, violations of international law, and civilian harm. This year the Games were especially shameful given the participation of the Israeli Occupation Forces, including a war criminal responsible for loading tanks in Gaza in December 2023.

Over 1,600 UBC students, faculty, staff, and community members signed letters calling on UBC to cancel their agreement to host the Invictus Games. The letters were delivered to President Bacon on February 3rd. UBC Media Relations confirmed that the administration had received the letters and would offer “no further comments” in response to this appeal from many hundreds of people calling out the hypocrisy of UBC claiming a commitment to community safety and global citizenship, yet hosting members of a military force enacting genocide against Palestinians. President Bacon dismissed the letters, an insult to the community.

Even worse, the Aquatic Centre was transformed into a fortress, patrolled for a week by militarized agents of the Canadian state who were armed with guns, knives, dogs, and surveillance equipment. None of this was for our community - it was to host war criminals. Numerous reports of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, pat downs, and broad mistreatment of UBC community members have been reported as acts of violence by forces occupying our campus. On February 12th, armed officers went to The Ubyssey press offices and demanded that journalists reveal their confidential sources for the story that covered the delivery of the signed letters to President Bacon. UBC Staff for Palestine responded with an open letter in the early morning of February 14th, calling upon President Bacon and UBC leadership to uphold its “guiding principles” to a safe and appropriate learning and work environment for staff, students, and faculty, per UBC’s statement on respectful environments.

One particularly reprehensible incident was caught on camera on February 14th. Nathan Herrington, a UBC staff member (and UBC alumnus), was carrying out his assigned duties in the designated pedestrian spaces outside of the Aquatic Centre when agents of the state abducted him and put him in the back of a van, isolated and handcuffed. He was informed he was being “detained for mischief” and his belongings were confiscated. The video footage shows Nathan asking why he is being detained with no specific reasons given. He was wearing a keffiyeh.

On January 20th, UBC released an “Introduction to Anti-Arab and Anti-Muslim Discrimination.” This document noted that it is anti-Palestinian discrimination to suggest “that wearing a keffiyeh or flying a Palestinian flag are acts of hate.” This educational document has since been removed from the Equity & Inclusion Office website and is no longer available.

The following are the official values of UBC - please consider how these values are mocked and assaulted under the tenure of President Bacon.

Excellence: A profound and aspirational value: the quality of striving to be, and being, outstanding.

Integrity: A moral value: the quality of being honest, ethical and truthful.

Respect: An essential and learned value: regard felt or shown towards different people, ideas and actions.

Academic freedom: A unique value of the academy: a scholar’s freedom to express ideas through respectful discourse and the pursuit of open discussion, without risk of censure.

Accountability: A personal and public value: being responsible for our conduct and actions and delivering upon our respective and reciprocal commitments.

The UBC administration can choose to uphold these values and join faculty, staff, and students who have called for an end to UBC’s complicity in Israeli war crimes. Instead, faculty are removed from teaching assignments, staff members are kidnapped, student spaces are abused for militarized surveillance, armed officers demand that students violate their journalism ethics, and anti-discrimination educational resources are removed from the internet. Where will it end? Any UBC administration that permits or encourages these behaviours is a danger to our community.

As a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Canadian state should follow the lead of other nations and investigate members of the Israeli Occupation Forces for war crimes. Instead, members of this genocidal force were welcomed into our province and onto our campus, receiving militarized protection to play some games.

International law and human rights norms established in the aftermath of World War II are under attack. Democratic institutions are failing all around us. At UBC, this reality is witnessed through a resurgence of control tactics and suppression of free inquiry and expression.

We, the undersigned members of the UBC community and concerned citizens, decry the acceptance of militarized agents of the state armed with guns, knives, dogs, and surveillance equipment coming onto the UBC campus and the targeting of community members. The atmosphere of surveillance and violent actions undertaken by agents of the state positioned on campus during the week of February 10th are unacceptable.

We call on the administration to protect and support all community members harassed, intimidated, detained, and mistreated by these armed and oppressive state forces. We demand UBC be accountable for incidents on its campus resulting from its hosting of these agents. This includes the treatment of Nathan Herrington, who was abducted, handcuffed, and placed in isolation in the back of a van while carrying out his assigned duties as a UBC staff member.

We call on President Bacon to 1) uphold the stated values of UBC or 2) resign.

We call on the Board of Governors to ensure one of these two actions is taken without delay to protect the university.

We submit this letter so the historical record is clear that you are aware of what is happening. You have choices to make.

Signed,

The UBC Community