We write to express our deep concern at the actions of senior figures within the University of Manchester in relation to an event organised by the student Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign earlier this year (UK university censors Holocaust survivor’s speech criticising Israel, theguardian.com, 29 September). While the event went ahead, the speech of a Jewish Holocaust survivor was arrogantly censored and labelled antisemitic, the right to superintend the meeting by university academic staff was usurped by institutional appointees, restrictions were placed on advertising the event, and the whole thing was filmed in what amounted to an implicit threat of potential further action.

As if such serious infringements of the right to freedom of speech on campus were not bad enough, it is now revealed by a student freedom of information request that the university’s actions were taken after representations from, and in deference to, the very regime whose lamentable human rights record was being condemned at the event. We are appalled that the university appeared to take instruction from Israel’s ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev, who, in his former capacity as spokesperson to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, justified to the world successive military assaults on Gaza that resulted in the indiscriminate killing of men, women and children in attacks on hospitals, homes and places of work using both high-precision weaponry and imprecise and indiscriminate materiel, including white phosphorus bombs.

We ask the university to apologise to the students whose campaign it has maligned, and to the censored speaker, Marika Sherwood, whom it has defamed. It should further make clear that it defends the principles of free speech and assembly against attempts to inhibit them by foreign states and other powerful external parties.

Dr David Alderson

Professor Mona Baker (Emerita)

Dr Lauren Banko

Dr Mark Brown

Professor Erica Burman

Professor Bridget Byrne

Alessandro Columbu

Professor Aneez Esmail

Emma Clarke

Professor Jeanette Edwards

Dr Douglas Field

Professor Hal Gladfelder

Dr Bethan Harries

Dr Jenny Hughes

Andrew Howes

Professor Tim Jacoby

Dr Stef Jansen

Dr Steven Jones

Dr Paul Kelemen (Honorary research fellow)

Peter McMylor

Professor Rayaz A Malik

Professor David Matthews

Dr Vanessa May

Dr Dalia Mostafa

Dr Adel Nasser

Dr Richie Nimmo

Dr Michelle Obeid

Professor Luis Perez-Gonzalez

Dr Eithne Quinn

Dr Madeleine Reeves

Professor Dee Reynolds

Dr Myriam Salama-Carr

Dr Michael Sanders

Professor Ludi Simpson

Professor Zahia Smail Salhi

Dr Graham Smith

Dr Robert Spencer

Professor Jackie Stacey

David Swanson

Dr Petra Tjitske Kalshoven

Dr Nicholas Thoburn

Professor Julian Williams

Dr Barbara Lebrun

• For George Monbiot, Labour could herald a new political movement, addressing the environmental challenge and inequality by “threatening established power in Britain”, creating space for a new politics (The Labour party could lead worldwide economic change, 11 October). We hope so. That is why we are members of the party. Not all members share this ambition. Some, it seems, would go to almost any lengths to thwart it.

The latest such move is the exclusion of Professor Moshe Machover, an academic and Israeli socialist, long resident in the UK. His offence? Two infringements: his insistence that anti-Zionism and support for Palestinian rights are not antisemitic; and his willingness to write articles about this in any leftwing publication. For this, he has been expelled from the party. In this strange linguistic wonderland, it is antisemitic to argue that anti-Zionism is not antisemitic.

The charge of antisemitism against Machover is personally offensive and politically dangerous. Misusing the term antisemitism for pro-Israel political purposes deprives it of its charge and its critical role in naming those who hate Jews because they are Jews. Real antisemitism is obscured by this self-serving redefinition of the term. Expelling Machover because another organisation published his work is absurd. This could just as well be used against Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. Perhaps they are next in line.

We are among 139 Labour party members, Jewish and non-Jewish, from many constituency organisations, who have written to our leadership demanding Professor Machover’s reinstatement, and an inquiry into how this has occurred.

Prof Avi Shlaim

Sir Geoffrey Bindman

Brian Eno

Ken Loach

Prof Haim Bresheeth

Prof Jonathan Rosenhead

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi