During the 2023–2024 academic year, authorities of the United Arab Emirates and the administration of New York University both acted to suppress and punish freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association at the university’s Abu Dhabi campus in the UAE.
Measures taken by the university included refusal to allow a number of social, cultural, political and educational events on campus; prohibition of a wide range of modes of expression at the year’s graduation ceremony; and suggestions to students and faculty seeking to exercise their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association that there would be punishment from the Emirati government if they did so.
Measures taken by the Emirati government included forcible return of a student and instructor to their country of origin, and arbitrary summons, interrogation and detention of faculty members. In all cases documented by Amnesty International, the repressive actions by the university and the government were based on speech related to the relentless Israeli onslaught and ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the occupied Gaza Strip.