First-year university students have been ‘rejected’ after a professor told them that the mass rapes committed by Hamas during the October 7 attacks were a ‘hoax’ and ‘fake news’.
Sujatha Fernandes, a professor of sociology at the University of Sydney, told her class in April that the media had “distorted” the war. The Australian reports.
“Western media has played the role of an ideological state apparatus by suppressing reporting of the atrocities and spreading fake news,” Professor Fernandes said.
‘[The media] He promoted a deception that Hamas would behead babies and commit mass rape to strengthen support for Israel, and distort events.”
The United Nations (UN) has said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Hamas committed mass and gang rape on October 7.
University of Sydney sociology professor Sujatha Fernandes (pictured) has shocked first-year students after claiming the October 7 Hamas mass rapes were a ‘hoax’
Professor Fernandes continued her talk by claiming that Israel had engaged in “ethnic cleansing, collective punishment and forced famine,” the report also claims.
A number of students, who wished to remain anonymous, said they were shocked by Professor Fernandes’ comments.
One of them said they had not committed to teaching four years and thousands of dollars worth of university tuition to teachers who “blatantly promote lies and create an unsafe, threatening environment.”
Another student who identified himself as Jewish said this reflected an “emerging trend of anti-Semitism” at the university.
They added that it was particularly concerning when a professor “denied undeniable evidence of the events of October 7, which Hamas proudly filmed itself.”
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Professor Fernandes and the University of Sydney for comment.
Her students said they were “disgusted” by the professor’s claims, which contradict a UN report that found “convincing information” about widespread sexual violence.
Pramila Patten, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, said they witnessed “scenes of unspeakable violence, committed with shocking brutality.”
Ms Patten said the acts committed on October 7 were “a catalog of the most extreme and inhumane forms of murder, torture and other horrors”, including sexual violence.
Her team found “compelling information” that sexual violence had been committed against hostages and prisoners.
They came to this conclusion after reviewing more than 5,000 photos and about 50 hours of footage of the attacks.
However, part of the report also found that at least “two allegations of sexual violence in Kibbutz Be’eri – widely reported in the media – were unfounded.”