Theilgebouw partially closed on Thursday afternoon due to announced demonstration

Part of the Theilgebouw will be closed off on Thursday afternoon due to an announced demonstration by members of the Iranian community against a symposium on diplomacy in the Middle East, where Sigrid Kaag, among others, is a guest speaker.

From 3 pm, the corridors between the UB and the Theilgebouw, and between the A building and the Theil building will be closed. Around 200 to 250 demonstrators are expected, according to the protest group.

The demonstration will take place between 6.30 pm and 10 pm and has not yet been assigned a location on campus. Because the symposium against which the protest is directed will take place in the Theil, the building will be partially closed from the afternoon as a precaution.
Classes and events scheduled after 3 pm in the building will be moved to other locations. The university is still working on finding replacement rooms, a university spokesperson said.

The university is trying to have the demonstration take place on the Erasmus Plaza.

Against negotiations with the Iranian regime

The demonstrators are calling for an end to negotiations with the Iranian regime. That is why they are protesting against the symposium, where diplomats Robert Malley and Sigrid Kaag are guest speakers. The US diplomat Robert Malley led negotiations on the nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 on behalf of the Obama administration. Kaag is a diplomat, former Minister of Finance and former Deputy Prime Minister in the Rutte IV cabinet. Until July 2025, she was the United Nations’ humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza.

The symposium, titled Middle East Diplomacy: The Inevitability of Tragedy?, will take place on Thursday evening between 7.30 pm and 9.30 pm in the Theil building and is organised by the Nexus Institute, which has no direct link with Erasmus University.

The group that has announced the demonstration has not previously protested on campus, but has done so in the city. Police will be present around the campus, according to a police spokesperson.