“We were abruptly told to drop the Ahmedi representative we had called to speak last night”
by News Desk
in News
In a series of tweets, Amnesty International LUMS Chapter told how they were ordered to ‘drop’ a guest they had invited to a talk they were hosting on tolerance in Pakistan with regards to marginalised minorities.
On 6th December 2022, Amnesty International LUMS Chapter intended to host a talk on tolerance in Pakistan with members of various marginalized minorities. Unfortunately, we were abruptly told to drop the Ahmedi representative we had called to speak last night.
The human rights organisation chapter clarified that it was not criticising the university itself but to highlight the necessity of explaining why a guest was missing.
Despite all the guests being approved, the order came after a recheck of all profiles.
The guests were approved days ago, but OSA ‘randomly’ chose to recheck our guest profiles, following which they told us our Ahmedi speaker could not come to the talk.
The thread did however attempt to hold LUMS accountable for its failure to protect free speech and discourse.
When we asked why we received vague responses about external interference. Still, it is shocking to see an institution such as LUMS fail to protect discourse, even telling us that it is fine because other minorities are still coming.
As a sign of protest against the order, an empty seat was left as a symbolic gesture of the guest who was asked to not be there post invitation.
While we are continuing with the talk, the irony of a particular speaker being dropped on a talk about Tolerance in Pakistan speaks volumes. To make our dissatisfaction known, we will leave an empty seat representing the dropped speaker. Please join us at 6pm today.
Categories: The Muslim Times