‘I was made a suspect. Executive Board, break with repressive policies’

In February, Delta revealed that TU Delft had shared the names of students and at least one employee with the police, merely because they were members of the End Fossil activist group. Until now it was not known whose names these were, and how TU Delft compiles these kinds of lists. Because of the ‘3mE employee’ note next to one of the redacted names, however, I immediately knew that that one was likely mine. The Safety and Security Department has confirmed this.

I asked them how I came to be on that list. The answer: one-and-a-half years before my name was sent to the police as a potential safety risk I wrote a controversial column. And later, someone from security recognised me at a peaceful protest on campus. That’s it.

Apparently, these are the sorts of things that our university keeps a register of. In secret. Never did I or my manager hear anything about it. Take a minute to let it sink in how insane this is. I wrote a column and I held up a banner. Two perfectly appropriate activities at an institute where critical debate and societal engagement should be core values. As a result I was registered as a security risk and became the target of surveillance.

Even without sharing such information with the police, the mere collection of it by TU Delft is extremely damaging. It means that employees and students in even slightly vulnerable positions will now think twice before they dare express their opinions, feel safe to openly attend a demonstration, or consult the Security Department when organising a protest.

They do not seem to understand what makes the universities actions so wrong

The Executive Board has admitted that mistakes were made. But they do not seem to understand what makes the universities actions so wrong. In their statement they say that ‘registration and information agreements have not been properly implemented’. They will therefore commission a study into how they can ‘improve the implementation of the covenant’ (i.e. the agreement between TU Delft and the police). In other words, they view what’s happened as simply a procedural mistake. Nowhere do they write that the registration and sharing of protesters’ names was wrong. Nowhere do they offer apologies. Nowhere do they show a proper understanding of the special responsibility that universities have as protectors and instigators of critical debate in democratic societies.

Also in the ‘covenant’ between TU Delft and the police, that I was allowed to read and that has since been shared with Delta, it is remarkable that demonstrations are mentioned as a security risk (in fact, they are the only example aside from ‘suspicious persons and things’) but not as an activity that itself deserves special protection. The police and TU Delft agree to be ‘proactive’ and ‘commit themselves to sharing relevant and available information with each other’. The only constraint on this that they mention is the limit of what is legally permitted.

The Board says it wants to guarantee the safety of employees, students, and visitors. But they do not appear to understand that they have endangered my safety and that of everyone who has ever attended a demonstration on campus or who has published a critical opinion. They have promised that the procedures for sharing information with the police will be reviewed. Good. But even internally it cannot be the case that activities that are crucial to the proper functioning of the academic community lead to registration by the university security service – a registration that they’ve shown can still lead to consequences years later.

The previous Executive Board habitually responded to protesters and critical voices with outright repression. That attitude seems to have taken root in the organisation. The new Board should now break radically with that inheritance. Clean up your act. Show that you understand the difference between a university campus and a business park. Delete any list of people against whom there is no concrete suspicion of illegal acts, or at the very least of violating the Code of Conduct. Inform everyone whose name is or was on such a list. In other words, actively guarantee the safety of protesters, activists, and critics, instead of TU Delft posing a security risk to them.

And apologise. Publicly. I think that is in order. Especially to the students whose good name TU Delft has dragged through the mud. I am quite sure that I know at least one or two other people whose name also appears on that redacted list. None of them has even been informed of that. For shame.