I am asking for your support. Some time during the week commencing 10th May 2004, The University of Birmingham blocked external access to ALL my personal web pages hosted on its computers (i.e. everything under http://web.bham.ac.uk/sue_blackwell ).

The sites which were blocked include:

• my general politics page, with links to many left-wing organisations

• the pages of Birmingham University Stop the War group

• my pages on Palestine and Israel which support Palestinian human rights

• my Trade Union pages, with links to campaigns against workplace bullying etc.

• my pages on Dutch/Flemish culture and language

• and even my undergraduate and research pages can only be accessed from campus.

I am writing to you as a fellow trade unionist and asking you to protest in particular about the blocking of my Trade Union page. You can view the content of this page at: http://www.sue.be/unions - as you can see it is mostly concerned with my own union, AUT, but there are links to other unions and to organisations concerned with, for instance, academic freedom or workplace bullying.

You can view the content of the other pages which have been banned via my new homepage:

www.sue.be

The battle with the University about its attempts to restrict the content of personal web pages has gone on for months. For details go to:

http://www.sue.be/web_campaign

But the final trigger that led to them blocking my pages was apparently that “further complaints” had been received about them. I have not officially been told what these complaints were, but rumour has it that someone alleged to the University that my Palestine page was “libellous“ because it called Ariel Sharon a war criminal! **

So, I consider this an act of political censorship. If you agree, please do the following:

1. Send messages of complaint to the people listed below. Please keep your message polite and to the point. Say how you have found my Trade Union pages useful. (If you have a particular interest in any of the other pages, by all means mention these too). If you are a student, teacher or lecturer who has used the site for your research or teaching, please emphasize this fact.

John Owen: j.g.owen@bham.ac.uk
(Infrastructure and Technology Development Team Leader)

David Supple: d.r.supple@bham.ac.uk
(Manager of the Corporate Web Team )

Michele Shoebridge: m.i.shoebridge@bham.ac.uk
(Director of Information Services)

Ray Tier: r.k.tier@bham.ac.uk
(Assistant Director of Information Services)

Dr. J.W. Nicholls: j.w.nicholls@bham.ac.uk
(Registrar and Secretary of the University of Birmingham)

2. Please do NOT e-mail general messages of support to me as the volume (hopefully) would clog my mailbox. But please DO visit the “Guest Book“ (hosted on my daughter’s site) and leave me a message there, once you have sent your message of protest to the University:

http://www.elven-star.net/sue

(NB the rest of this site is dedicated to Lord of the Rings fan stuff and has nothing to do with the web campaign! )

I will use the number of messages on this site as a rough indication of how many messages of protest have been sent to the University.

3. Please DO e-mail me if you have details of universities in the UK or elsewhere which have a more enlightened policy about hosting personal web pages.

4. Tell your friends about the campaign website at:

http://www.sue.be/web_campaign

AND (mirror site)

http://www.queen.clara.net/web_campaign

5. Please forward this message to trade unionists and other like-minded people who oppose censorship and support academic freedom.

Thank you for your support! I am currently in the course of bringing a formal grievance against the University and will keep you posted via the campaign websites mentioned above.

Sue Blackwell (an officer of Birmingham AUT)
Department of English,
The University of Birmingham,
Edgbaston,
BIRMINGHAM B15 2TT

e-mail: S.A.Blackwell@bham.ac.uk

** Given that (a) an Israeli court has held Ariel Sharon responsible for the war crimes at Sabra and Shatila, and (b) Amnesty International has referred to the recent Israeli attacks on Rafa as war crimes, I have no problem with using that term. I look forward to the day when Sharon is brought to trial for his war crimes. See: http://indictsharon.net for the latest on the prospects of this happening.