Hateful posters at the Multifaith Centre prompt questions from UVic community about on-campus safety
Photo by Anna Alva.
TW: Discussion of anti-Muslim racism and Islamophobia
*Names of certain interviewed individuals have been changed to protect their anonymity
On Friday, July 5, hateful posters were found placed on the doors of UVic’s Multifaith Centre. The posters, which were anti-Muslim and Islamophobic in nature, have sparked questions from UVic’s community about the safety of campus.
The posters were found by custodial staff early in the morning and were reported to Campus Security at approximately 8:20 a.m. The flyers included translations of Hebrew and Arabic, equating Allah with the devil’s counterpart, cursing Muslims, and calling for the death of Iran and Palestine, as well as victory to Israel.
The posters included line-by-line translations of Hebrew and Arabic, but many have noted mistranslations of both languages.
On July 6, the People’s Park of UVic shared the incident and photos of the posters on their Instagram page, classifying them as a death threat.
“A death threat was tacked onto the Multifaith Centre on July 5th. People’s Park condemns this hateful rhetoric, and wish to make people aware of ongoing safety concerns on campus,” reads the post.
The week following the incident, Elizabeth Croft, Vice-President of Academic and Provost, and Kristi Simpson, Vice-President of Finance and Operations, provided a letter to the Muslim community. In this letter, Croft and Simpson recount the incident, condemn the use of graffiti on campus, note that an investigation was started by UVic with Oak Bay Police, and provide information for contacting police, supports, and campus security.
Six days following the discovery of the posters, president and vice-chancellor Kevin Hall shared Croft and Simpson’s letter, informing the broader UVic community of the incident.
“Earlier this week we shared the letter below with our Muslim community as a follow-up to the incident. We know, and have heard, that this has been a distressing experience for many and challenged some members of our community’s sense of safety. We wanted to ensure the message reached all those impacted first and foremost. We are committed to continuing to do everything we can to make UVic a safe place to be for all of members of our community,” reads Hall’s release.
Two non-Muslim professors associated with Workers for Palestine — a group of workers from UVic who stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and everyone who supports the rights of Indigenous peoples — say that UVic has failed to see this incident as a part of a larger issue of hate on campus.
“Only treating this as one incident of hate and one incident of targeted harassment I think neglects the overall climate of anti-Muslim racism, anti-Palestinian racism that I think has been super present over the last year,” said the first professor, who will be referred to as Nikolina. “These aren’t isolated incidents, right? There’s a bigger climate issue at stake and I don’t think the university’s responses see that.”
“The other thing that is important to consider is that the university withheld important information from the community for six, seven days, and given [UVic’s] ongoing storytelling about keeping the campus community safe, letting people know that a death threat has been issued against their community actually is a part of keeping people safe, because it allows them to make decisions about their own safety,” said the second professor, who will be referred to as Lucija.
“I think already, the university will not be a safe place for Muslims, for Palestinians, for Iranians, for people from the diaspora to study, to work, to engage, and that is a huge loss for the university,” said Nikolina.
The professors also classify the hate posters as anti-Semitic, as they weaponize the use of Hebrew to pit Muslim and Jewish people against each other.
Nikolina also argues that the People’s Park of UVic is in the background of UVic’s response.
“I think that they’ve really consistently portrayed the encampment as threatening, right? Or as an inherently unsafe place, or something that has jeopardized campus safety, when there really has been no evidence of that,” she said.
The incident, said Lucija, raises the question: “Who does this campus maintain comfort for? Who is actually safe here?”
