OPINION – In an open letter, Radboud staff members ask the university’s leadership to apologise for the wrongful detention of staff and students last December. According to the staff members, the event has created an unsafe work environment. ‘Restore our trust in your leadership capabilities.’

The wrongful detention of staff and students this past December, and the ensuing neglect of Radboud’s administration to take accountability for this damaging event, is the latest incident in a chain of leadership failures. We are members of the Radboud community concerned with good governance, social and physical safety and human rights. We are also concerned with the right to attend work or school and voice our political opinions in support of the former without being subject to violent policing on campus. Because of this, we express our deep concern surrounding some of the ways in which university leadership has severely undermined principles of good governance, and we propose ways in which our administration can begin to repair the damage done.

Today, the official death toll in Gaza approaches 62,000, not counting those trapped under the rubble. Estimates made as far back as July 2024 put the likely death toll at nearly 200,000. The extent of death, injury and damage is also obfuscated due to the targeted destruction of health and civic infrastructure, including damage or (partial) destruction of all hospitals and medical complexes and the complete destruction of all twelve universities.

Keffiyehs

On December 16, 2024, on day 437 of Israel’s all-out assault in Gaza, students and staff gathered on the lawn next to the Maria Montessori building for a demonstration demanding an end to our complicity in genocide, which was cancelled at the last minute. From there, six staff and students boarded a public bus towards the city center to go home but were followed, stopped, and arrested by police, accompanied by Radboud staff members aiding in their identification. They appeared to be singled out for the simple fact that they were wearing keffiyehs. To their shock and horror, they were detained in police custody for over 30 hours on suspicion of property damage elsewhere on campus. The investigation into the staff and students in question was dismissed by the police by mid-January 2025 ​​​due to a lack of incriminating evidence and the presence of clear counter-evidence.

‘An impossible situation has emerged in which members of the community must work in the same space as those who wrongfully identified them to the police’

A reconstruction of events shows the following: the reported property damage entails holes drilled into a door and alleged damage to a computer screen and window frames in the Elinor Ostrom building (EOS), discovered by EOS security staff, who then called the police. Police then began a hunt, randomly arresting six staff and students, in the presence of two Radboud staff members.

One can only conclude that the persons involved in filing the complaint with the police on behalf of the university gravely exaggerated the facts on the ground if it triggered a city-wide man-hunt, and falsely identified six innocent people, their own colleagues and students, on their way home. Despite repeated pleas, phone calls, emails, and witness testimonials (from staff who were with the six arrestees on the field near Maria Montessori at the time of the events at EOS) provided to the Executive Board from students and staff, including a petition with over 900 signatures, Radboud has, so far, refused to reach out to their staff and students to apologize for the wrongful arrest, and have failed to issue any statement regarding this wrongful detention. At no point during the detention did Radboud decide to drop charges following said witness testimonials or an assessment of the extent of ‘property damage’. Silence on behalf of Radboud has left the door open to damaging media framing criminalising the victims, as well as unchecked online harassment and defamation of staff by media and students (e.g. here, here and here).

Crisis zone

Moreover, we are, to our disbelief, left with a sense of acute, physical unsafety as workers and students on this campus: campus feels like a crisis zone – where we may come to work and study, but never know when we’ll return home. If these six innocent people can get arrested and detained simply for a display of solidarity against genocide, this can happen to any of us. This can happen to you too.

These arrests marked a new low in a pattern of violent policing on campus over the past 15 months. From the fall of 2023 onwards, as Israel’s attacks on Gaza escalated beyond what was already described nearly twenty years ago as an ‘incremental genocide’, student and staff protests and encampments attempt to draw attention to our ties to Israeli higher education institutions, themselves pillars of the Israeli military-industrial complex, making Radboud complicit in the gravest of human rights violations.

In June 2024, riot police were called to campus two successive times in response to the anti-genocide encampment. The camp was evicted using police violence under cover of darkness. Security personnel, who may not as a function of their position use physical confrontation, forcefully detained and assaulted students on campus while they were writing in chalk outside the Berchmanianum. Other students reported being profiled and followed on campus over the ensuing months. In June 2024, security called police on students who were studying in the university library for wearing Keffiyehs and a Palestinian flag. In July 2024, a Palestinian student announced that they would quit their studies due to their experience of espionage and intimidation on campus.

Silence at the top

Violent policing and polarization on campus have sparked lasting and dangerous consequences for staff and students involved and an irreparable breach of trust within the community. We have experienced physical violence by police and security staff on campus. Espionage. Defamation. Insults. Intimidation. And, probably the most violent and dangerous of all, a deafening silence about all of this from university leadership. Many students and staff are afraid to go to campus in light of Radboud’s failure to acknowledge, let alone protect, community members arbitrarily arrested and detained for over 30 hours. Furthermore, an impossible situation has emerged in which members of the community must work or study in the same space as those who wrongfully identified them to the police.

‘Radboud, it is time to live by the principles of Titus Brandsma – the vehemently anti-fascist former rector of our university’

Radboud, we hold you accountable for the polarized working culture and feeling of unsafety on campus. Restore our trust in your leadership capabilities and take the lead in finding new ways to work and study together – or accept being remembered as the university leaders who destroyed everything a university stands for.

• Take accountability for the events of December 16. Release a statement confirming the wrongful arrest of staff and students, and the dropping of any charges against those held.
• Commit to a drastic change in security practices. Police should never be called to hunt down students or staff unless there is life-threatening danger or a severe threat of bodily harm to members of the academic community.
• Protect students and staff from similar situations of profiling and arrest in the future, safeguarding the community’s right to free speech and assembly.
• Take a moral stance against genocide, illegal occupation and apartheid. Cut ties to institutions complicit in the gravest crimes against humanity.

Across the Netherlands, Europe and North America, countless universities have chosen not to invoke or (silently) condone police brutality against non-violent staff and students, and instead engage in negotiation and debate, or choose to temporarily freeze ties to complicit Israeli institutions while a framework is developed. ​​​​​​​Radboud, it is time to live by the principles of Titus Brandsma – the vehemently anti-fascist former rector of our university. As during the Nazi occupation, choose the right side of history.

Signed,

Adele Tufford, Nijmegen School of Management
Olivia Guest, Faculty of Social Sciences
Juliette Alenda-Demoutiez, Nijmegen School of Management
Marieke van Houte, Faculty of Social Sciences
Noha Yassen, Faculty of Social Sciences
Harry Pettit, Nijmegen School of Management
Anya Topolski, Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies
Mirjam Broersma, Faculty of Arts
Mathijs van de Sande, Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies
Gaard Kets, Nijmegen School of Management
Angela Wigger, Nijmegen School of Management
Olivier Thomas Kramsch
Catherina Wilson, Nijmegen School of Management
Lotje Siffels, Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies
Marieke Woensdregt, Faculty of Social Sciences
Katerina Manevska, Nijmegen School of Management
Arnoud Lagendijk, Nijmegen School of Management
Francesco Battaglia, Faculty of Science
Eefje Derix, Faculty of Social Sciences
Alana Osbourne, Nijmegen School of Management
Klaas Landsman, Faculty of Science
​​​​​​​Iris van Rooij, Faculty of Social Sciences
Mark Blokpoel, Faculty of Social Sciences
​​​​​Nils Donselaar, Faculty of Social Sciences
Samuel Ballin, Faculty of Law
Tine Davids, Faculty of Social Sciences
Ivan Toni, Faculty of Social Sciences
Daniel DeRock, Nijmegen School of Management
Juliana Lins, Nijmegen School of Management
Laura M. De Vos, Faculty of Arts
Marjan Smeulders, Faculty of Science
Kamile Kartal, General Practitioner, Lecturer