Across the United States, "heads are rolling" at the top of some Ivy League universities amid a campus-wide crackdown on students protesting Israel's war in Gaza, shining a spotlight on the question of freedom of expression worldwide, said UN Special Rapporteur Irene Khan.
"The Gaza crisis is truly becoming a global crisis of the freedom of expression," said Ms. Khan, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. "This is going to have huge repercussions for a long time to come."
Demonstrations around the world have been roundly calling for an end to the war, which began in October following Hamas-led attacks on Israel that left 1,200 people dead and 250 taken hostage, 133 of who remain captive in Gaza.
Since then, Israeli military operations have killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry, which now faces a man-made famine UN agencies have said stems from Israel's restrictions on aid deliveries.
Ms. Khan said the way academic freedom in the United States is being restricted is infringing on people's rights to protest over the on-going war and occupation, including on campuses of such elite Ivy League schools as Colombia, Harvard and Yale universities.
"One after the another, the Ivy League heads of colleges and universities, their heads are rolling, they've been chopped off," she said. "That clearly polarises even further the political climate on this issue between 'them' and 'us'."
