300 signatories exposed in alleged UCT email leak

UCT Renewal expresses serious concern regarding the apparent leak of a privately emailed Open Letter addressed to University of Cape Town (UCT) leadership.

On 30 March 2026, following a Call to Action facilitated by UCT Renewal, an Open Letter: Proposed Conferral of an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (honoris causa) to Dr Imtiaz Sooliman on Monday, 30 March 2026 was emailed to the office of the UCT Vice-Chancellor Professor M Moshabela (receipt acknowledged by Tammy McClachlan-Daniels of the Office of the Vice-Chancellor ), the UCT Council Chair Adv N Arendse SC (no courtesy of a response), UCT Interim Registrar Professor K Idensohn & Chumisa Kunorozva of her Office (no courtesy of a response) and Executive Director of Development and Alumni Ms Sarah Archer (receipt acknowledged personally).

UCT Renewal has facilitated multiple open letters to the University of Cape Town, some of which we intentionally publish online. However, when doing so, the names of the signatories to these letters are not made public.

UCT Renewal intentionally did not publish the March 30th Open Letter publicly. This decision was taken to protect the personal information of the signatories to this letter.

Despite this precaution:

• On 31 March 2026, members of the media directly approached individual signatories for comment.
• On 1 April 2026, a version of the Open Letter including the full list of approximately 300 signatories was published by News24, having been appended to separate, personal email correspondence from UCT academics to the Vice-Chancellor’s office.
• The above version of the correspondence has since been published online by other parties.

The decision not to publish the signatory names publicly was grounded in lived experience. Individuals who express dissenting views within the environment around Dr. Sooliman and the support of Hamas or even individuals who have remained silent on Gaza have, in documented instances, been:

• Subjected to online harassment and reputational attacks
• Labelled in politically charged terms
• Targeted within academic and professional spaces
• Boycotted

Sadly, our perception and experience of the current climate at UCT is one in which people who speak out against actions of the UCT Leadership that are believed to prioritize political ideology over the best interests of UCT are painted by opposing voices as ‘part of the zionist lobby; pro-zionist plot or zionist agenda’.

Our experience of this was the UCT Convocation Council Elections in 2025, at which time UCT Renewal launched and reached out to concerned UCT alumni to register to attend the AGM and vote on the proposed motions and in the elections.

In response to our campaign, the following comments emerged:

“Zionist UCT alumni are mobilising to ensure that the upcoming AGM of the UCT Convocation is dominated by pro-genocide voices and thus drive decision making and the future of UCT. It is vital that all those who stand against genocide register and attend the AGM….”

The UCT Alumni 4 Palestine group included the following in their widely circulated announcement of the election results, wherein five of their candidates/SA Jews for a Free Palestine members were voted onto the UCT Convocation Council Exec:

“We take courage from our collective success. Together, we will ensure that UCT never becomes a home for racism or for Zionists who support the genocide in Gaza. We must continue to stand firmly with the Palestinian struggle for liberation, wherever we find ourselves.”

The other candidates who contested the 2025 Convocation Council Exec elections were individuals from a diversity of backgrounds, all of whom were advocating for the best interests of UCT, a far cry from “Zionists who support the genocide in Gaza”.

Additionally, a motion that was proposed at that AGM, supported by UCT Renewal, was about Academic Freedom and Freedom of Association and based on these principles in the Bill of Rights.

This motion failed, voted down by those influenced by a campaign from UCT Alumni 4 Palestine depicting this motion as a mask to protect partnerships with Israeli institutions. The gravitas of this warrants repetition: the UCT Convocation AGM voted against a motion on Academic Freedom. The minutes of this December 2025 meeting have not yet been published by UCT.

Key concerns

It is against this background and in this environment that UCT, as the only recipient of the 30 March Open Letter, has compromised the signatories to this letter by leaking their names to the press.

In our view there is a reasonably foreseeable risk of harm and harassment of these signatories on the basis of their religious belief and/or conscience; intimidation and cyber bullying of those who signed, including academic staff and students.

It is literally the stated modus operandi of movements in support of Palestine to specifically target any person that they perceive to be aligned to Zionism or Israel in any manner, irrespective of whether or not that is the truth.

We believe that UCT has placed the signatories to the 30 March Open letter in harm’s way, materially increasing the likelihood of:

• Online abuse and doxing
• Workplace hostility
• Social and academic exclusion of students

In light of these developments, UCT Renewal wishes to make the following clear: No signatory consented to the public release of their name via media publication nor did they consent to UCT’s provision of the emailed correspondence to the media.

UCT Renewal is coordinating access to legal assistance for any signatory who experiences:

• Harassment (online or in person)
• Defamation
• Workplace interference
• Violations of privacy

Affected individuals are encouraged to document incidents and seek support.

UCT Renewal reaffirms its commitment to open dialogue, academic freedom and respectful disagreement. These principles cannot exist where individuals are potentially exposed to harm for expressing lawful and reasoned views.

UCT, as a leading academic institution, bears a responsibility to ensure that:

• Confidential communications are protected
• Members of its community are safe from intimidation
• Institutional processes do not expose individuals to foreseeable harm Call for Accountability

UCT Renewal calls on UCT leadership to conduct an urgent independent investigation into the leak of this and the other personal emails from academic staff regarding Dr. Sooliman. We demand accountability from UCT and insist on any person/s found guilty of leaking the emails to be formally disciplined.