  2003 Annual Report |
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Asia |
| Europe |
| Mid-East/Africa |
| Americas |
The European boycott of Israeli academics remains quietly in effect. The most visible expression of this boycott occurred in 2003, when the Egyptian-born editor and owner of two academic journals, Mona Baker, demanded the resignation of two Israeli consulting editors. They refused and were summarily fired. We wrote then in vigorous protest. This past year, there has been further activity in this area. On September 18, 2003, Mona Baker and Lawrence Davidson published a new, comprehensive and very lengthy defense of the boycott in the online magazine CounterPunch.
And in a similar incident to that in 2003, pathology professor Andrew Wilkie of the University of Oxford wrote in an e-mail to an Israeli student applicant that he could not accept an Israeli in his lab, especially one "who had served in the Israeli army." His stated reason was his opposition to Israeli government policy vis-a-vis the Palestinians. Disciplinary procedures by the University were commenced. While waiting to hear the verdict, we wrote to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, Colin Lucas, urging him to treat the case with the utmost seriousness and to verify for the academic community that this kind of discrimination would not be tolerated. This past October, Professor Wilkie was suspended from his academic duties, without pay, for two months and ordered to undergo equal-opportunities training.
Russia
A humanitarian worker, Arjan Erkel, Head of Mission for Medecins Sans Frontieres, providing medical aid to refugees from nearby Chechnya, was abducted in the city of Makhachkala, capital of Dagestan, in 2003. In March 2003, the Interior Minister of Dagestan, Adilgerey Magomedtagirov, announced that Mr. Erkel was believed to be still alive, yet little information was released about potential suspects or possible motives for the kidnapping and little was being done to investigate the case. We wrote to urge that the authorities spare no effort to rescue Arjan Erkel and that they share what information they possessed with Mr. Erkel's organization, Medecins Sans Frontieres. Still there has been no word, after more than 14 months, although in October 2003, during an official visit to Switzerland, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Igor Ivanov confirmed that Mr. Erkel was believed to be alive.
