Letter to KTH University Board

The Action Group at KTH for Boycott of Israel has sent the letter below to the Board of The Royal Institute of Technology.
Dick Urban Vestbro
Prof Emer

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KTH University Board
100 44 Stockholm
2014-05-28

Bill Gates got his first global Honorary Doctoral title from KTH in 2002. He was awarded the title in the Strindberg room at the classical Berns in central Stockholm with the following motivation “in his leadership, he has demonstrated the opportunities provided by information technology, and has assisted the introduction of computers and software into the homes and workplaces of almost every member of the world’s industrialised societies”.

Recently Bill Gates visited Sweden, the world richest man, and was praised by politicians and media for his philanthropic charity.

However The International Business Times writes 17 April that Bill Gates' philanthropic body, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has complicity in the torture of Palestinian prisoners through its investment in British security company G4S. The foundation, the largest in the world, last year purchased £110m ($172m) worth of shares in G4S.

G4S provides security services and equipment at Israeli prisons. Human rights organization have documented child torture, forced confessions, overcrowding and medical neglect. More than 5,000 Palestinians, including 183 children, are in detention in Israeli prisons. Through its holdings in G4S, the Gates Foundation is legitimising and profiting from Israel’s use of torture, mass incarceration and arbitrary arrests to discourage Palestinians from opposing Israel’s apartheid policies.

The state of Israel has for more than 45 years broken international law and neglected numerous UN resolutions. The crimes are many; continuous occupation of Palestinian land, displacement of unwanted inhabitants, an increasing number of illegal settlements, theft of water resources, destruction of agricultural land and olive groves, separation of Palestine by fences and the Apartheid wall, humiliation of Palestinians through hundreds of checkpoints etc.

KTH, the leading technical university in Sweden, has since 1998 a framework agreement with Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) for the exchange of students, teachers and researchers. In spite of warnings from the Action group, the Rector renewed the agreement in 2013 for a new five years period. The Technion is complicit in Israel’s violations of international law and the rights of the Palestinians, specifically by:
Designing military weapons and developing technologies that are used to drive Palestinians out of their land, repress demonstrations for their rights and put protestors in prison, and carry out attacks against the people in Lebanon, Gaza and elsewhere. The Technion is directly implicated in war crimes.

The Action Group for Boycott of Israel repeats its request that the KTH leadership must follow its ethical policy which is based on “democracy, equal values of individuals, human rights and freedom and an open discussion”. It should immediately repeal the framework agreement with Technion.

In addition to this the Action Group asks the KTH leadership to re-evaluate Bill Gates award as an Honorary Doctor at KTH.

For the Action Group at KTH for the Boycott of Israel
Jan-Erik Gustafsson
Associate professor