The government is "not worried" about
recent episodes of alleged intolerance and censorship in Italian
universities amid mounting protests over the impact on the
civilian population in Gaza of Israel's war against Hamas
sparked by the October 7 terror attacks, but it rejects any
recourse to violence, Universities Minister Anna Maria Bernini
said on Thursday.
"I am here to listen and share the most appropriate solutions so
that recent episodes are not repeated," said Bernini ahead of a
meeting with the deans' group CRUI.
"We are not worried, we protect freedom of thought with just one
insurmountable cut-off point: violence," she added.
The meeting was called after La Repubblica editor Maurizio
Molinari was on Friday prevented from speaking at Naples
University due to his alleged pro-Israeli bias.
"On Thursday we will meet with University Minister Anna Maria
Bernini and with all the representatives of the 85 universities
of the CRUI: we will launch ideas, actions, to make it even
clearer that demonstrations that prevent people from speaking
are not tolerated, universities are places of dialogue, when you
ask to speak you must also know how to listen," said CRUI
President Giovanna
Iannantuoni at the time.
Since then pro-Palestinian protests at Turin university led the
Academic Senate to decide not to participate in a call for
scientific cooperation with Israel, prompting Noemi Di Segni,
the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, on
Wednesday to denounce the "worrying escalation in universities,
with expressions of hatred towards Israel and Jews that in
recent weeks have reached levels of very serious concern".
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