The group of master’s students on the Ethnicity and Migration programme at Campus Norrköping are unique. They are the first in Sweden to take a university course in how to create a campaign in support of an imprisoned researcher and for academic freedom.
(From l to r) Elif Öner, Sorata Watanabe, Mbachu Ikechukwu, Leigh Lane, Blessing Edebor, Andrea Kjellin.Photographer: Thor Balkhed
Blessing Edebor from Nigeria is one of nine master’s students who have chosen to take the new course Scholars at Risk student led workshop.
“I’ve realised that it’s not the first thing you do that has an effect, nor the last. It’s the tenacious work that produces results,” is how she summarises her experiences so far.
,It's the tenacious work that gives results, says Blessing Edebor.Fotograf: Thor Balkhed
The students have taken on the task of designing a campaign in support of the Swedish-Iranian researcher Ahmadreza Djalali, imprisoned in Iran since 2016. The result will be a written report, a campaign on social media, seminars, webinars and an exhibition. Their goal is to reach the Swedish public.
In the longer term, the campaign will hopefully contribute to the release of Ahmadreza Djalali.
“One thing I’ve learned is that you can’t always trust your government to do the right thing. Sometimes, you as an individual have to go out there and protest and make a fuss, says master’s student Leigh Anne Lane from the USA.
In defence of academic freedom
The course format was originally developed by Scholars at Risk (SAR), which is an international network of over 650 higher education institutions that want to work for academic freedom. The network also provides support to individual researchers who
are exposed to threats and persecution. For example, Linköping University has recently received three Afghan researchers via SAR.
The person who initiated the course and adapted it to the master’s programme is Professor Claudia Tazreiter at LiU’s Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO). She is Sweden’s representative at the European Advocacy Committee for Scholars at Risk, which is the European part of the SAR network, but she is also involved in the issue nationally.
“It’s about how we ensure the freedom to conduct research, the freedom to teach, the freedom to determine curricula, the freedom to innovate, but also about defending students’ right to education,” she explains.
Professor Claudia Tazreiter initiated the course.Photographer: Thor BalkhedAlso for engineers
The new course is being conducted as a pilot at the Master's Programme in Ethnicity and Migration at LiU, but Claudia Tazreiter believes that it could be given within any programme, which is an idea she has also put forward to the university management. What is taught can be applied in other areas, as it is about the art of speaking for a cause and making it understandable and useful to people who are not specialists in your field.
“Engineers could also benefit from this when speaking to the public about what they’re doing, for example,” she says.
The master’s students come from different parts of the world: USA, Turkey, Sweden, Japan and Nigeria. They are happy to do some practical work after all the theoretical courses. That said, it is a challenge to write a report that everyone will be able to understand. It is a challenge to find a place to set up an exhibition. It is a challenge to get through the noise and past the algorithms on social media.
I wanted to participate because academic freedom is really important, says Leigh Lane. Fotograf: Thor Balkhed
Critical of the government
But Ahmadreza Djalali’s fate has also touched them. He is a researcher in disaster medicine and has been unjustly sentenced to death by an Iranian court. When Sweden conducted a prisoner exchange with Iran last year, he remained in prison. The students are critical of how the Swedish Government acted.
“I did some research before I came here and understood that Sweden was committed to human rights. But when I started working on this case, I realised that the commitment wasn’t as deep as I thought. That was an eye-opener,” says Blessing Edebor.
Therefore, the students hope to visit the Swedish Parliament and talk to the politicians about Djalali’s case and the importance of academic freedom. At the end of April, they plan to go to the University of Dundee in Scotland together with their teacher to present their report and exchange experiences with other European students who have worked on similar campaigns.
More voices about the course:
– I am surprised that the UN is such a toothless bulldog, says Mbachu Ikechukwu from Nigeria.
Photographer: Thor Balkhed
– We wanted to write so our family would be able to read it and understand, says Sorata Watanabe from Japan.
Photographer: Thor Balkhed
– I was surprised how often Doctor Djalali's case has been brought up in the Parliament and nothing has happened, says Andrea Kjellin from Sweden.
Photographer: Thor Balkhed
– Reaching people, bypassing the algorithms on social media, is quite a challenge, says Elif Öner from Turkey.
Photographer: Thor Balkhed
