Norway’s largest newspaper Verdens Gang today reports that the government, represented by Minister of Higher Education and Research Tora Aasland (Socialist Left) sees a boycott as a violation of legal practice. To VG she states:
I am not an adherent of an academic boycott of Israel. This is also the view of the government, says Aasland to Aftenposten.
She emphasizes that educational institutions in Norway are to further academic freedom by following ethical and scientific principles of openness.
She then proceeds to defend the rights of a university to hold seminars, a right which has never been under attack.
She says NTNU has the right to arrange meetings and seminars about Middle East politics.
How many Norwegian journalists will pick up on this little detail, one might wonder. On television today, Minister Tora Aasland emphasized her sympathy with the Palestine-lobby, and recognized the right of any individual academic to cooperate with whomever she or he desire to cooperate for. A message which may be interpreted in several ways.
Let us see what the clever lads and lasses of Akersgata – Norway’s Fleet Street – make of this tomorrow.
[...] for a blanket boycott of Israeli academia, culture and research. Perhaps most significantly, as relayed by the indispensable NIJ blog, Norwegian Minister of Higher Education and Research Tora Aasland, a member of the Socialist Left [...]
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