Banned Palestinian activist to speak at Wageningen protest via video call
Activist Mohammed Khatib of the pro-Palestinian organization Samidoun will speak via a video link at a protest in Wageningen on Friday. The Netherlands denied Khatib access to the country last month when he was invited by Radboud University employees to speak in Nijmegen.
Friday’s protest is organized by the pro-Palestinian action group Wageningen Encampment. The speech will happen on the Wageningen University & Research campus at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, the group said on Instagram.
On X, Minister Marjolein Faber of Asylum and Migration said that Khatib is still not welcome in the Netherlands. “The entry ban I imposed on Khatib in consultation with the Ministry of Justice and Security still stands,” she wrote. She called on educational institutions “not to facilitate the online dissemination of a hateful message.”
A spokesperson for the two Ministers called a video speech by Khatib “highly undesirable,” speaking to NOS. “In order to protect the democratic constitutional state, we are also looking at the possibilities of tackling the worrying effects of spreading hateful messages.”
Faber and Justice Minister David van Weel defended the entry ban against Khatib last month by saying that the organization he belongs to, Samidoun, “expresses support for various terrorist organizations, calls for the release of terrorists, and calls terrorist attacks resistance. There is absolutely no place in the Netherlands for sowing and glorifying hatred.”
Wageningen University & Research told NOS that the university did not invite Khatib. “We are being used as a location for something that we did not organize,” a spokesperson said. The university has yet to decide whether to allow the speech.
A spokesperson for Wageningen Encampment told the broadcaster that they organized the speech by Khatib precisely because of the entry ban. Pro-Palestinian activists are quickly labeled as criminals or terrorists “while they stand up for the Palestinian population. We want to give these criminalized voices a platform.” The organization is critical of the entry ban but will respect it.
Khatib’s address in Nijmegen also happened via video connection.
