STUDENTS at the University of Edinburgh have created an exhibition memorialising hundreds of journalists killed in Palestine by Israel.
The Killing the Messenger exhibition opened this week inside the Chrystal Macmillan Building and sheds light on more than 250 journalists who have been murdered during the genocide.
Pictures of the reporters have been displayed on boards across the room in front of a clock and sign counting the days the atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank have been going on for.
It comes after PhD students at the university were allegedly interrogated by police over pro-Palestine posters they had displayed in their offices last November.
A letter from 78 PhD students in the social and political sciences department was written to the head of the school, John Devaney, at the time expressing concern over police officers being “allowed to wander freely through the building” and question students without warning.
Police Scotland told The Ferret that it had not received any complaints about the visit and that the community officers who questioned students were “well known on campus and visit regularly” to engage with those studying at the university and “as part of patrols”.
After a senior lecturer was subsequently accused of assaulting a student who was handing out pro-Palestinian censorship leaflets, the university offered funding for students to hold the week-long exhibition.
Lee McNeish, one of the organisers, said he hopes it will show highlight to visitors the political consequences of journalists being killed while giving people a quiet space to reflect.
He told The National: "I hope it helps people to put a face to a name, to put names and faces to numbers, and understand the political significance of what happens when we allow journalists to be killed.
"It’s an enforced silencing of a genocide. If you don’t have the details coming out of Palestine then we can’t know what’s happening and they [Israel] get away with it.
"It’s also a space for memorialisation and for people who just want to take a quiet moment amid the atrocities that have happened and know there’s other people around taking a quiet moment with them."
The students have also put out a pile of papers featuring the names of every known civilian killed in the genocide, with some victims just days old.
Messages of thanks have been left by people in a guestbook saying "killing journalists is a war crime" and "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free".
The exhibition will be held until Sunday in the Violet Laidlaw Room on the sixth floor of the Chrystal Macmillan Building.
