AP Week in Pictures: Europe and Africa

June 7-13, 2024

Malawi Vice President Saulos Chilima and nine other people were killed in a plane crash. Voters across the European Union went to the polls for the European parliamentary elections to choose their representatives for the next five-year term. The crater of a volcano near Grindavik, Iceland, continued to erupt.

In sports, cities and towns across Europe made preparations for the start of the Euro 2024 Soccer Championship and Paris organizers mounted the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower to mark 50 days until the start of the Summer Games.

This gallery highlights some of the most compelling images made or published in the past week by Associated Press photographers in Europe and Africa.

The selection was curated by chief photographer Markus Schreiber in Berlin.

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A test run of a light show illuminates the sky and the river Main in Frankfurt, Germany, late Tuesday, June 11, 2024. The show is part of the city's entertainment program on occasion of the Euro 2024 soccer tournament and will take place every evening during the tournament. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

A Ukrainian war veteran with prosthetic legs watch players of Ukraine's national soccer team during a public training session in Wiesbaden, Germany, Thursday, June 13, 2024, ahead of their group E match against Romania at the Euro 2024 soccer tournament. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

A women walks past inflatable soccer balls, orange tarp, orange bunting, and Dutch national flags as she walks along Marktweg street in The Hague, Netherlands, Thursday June 13, 2024, one day ahead of the start of the Euro 2024 Soccer Championship. The Marktweg is one of several streets in the Netherlands that get an all-encompassing orange facelift during European Championships and World Cups when the national team, known as Oranje after the Dutch royal family and the color of their shirts, are playing. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

Coco Gauff of the U.S., left, and Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic kiss the trophy as they won the women's doubles final match of the French Open tennis tournament against Italy's Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris, Sunday, June 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)

A woman stands in a group of Romanian soccer ultras during an international friendly soccer match between Romania and Liechtenstein at the Steaua stadium in Bucharest, Romania, Friday, June 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

The Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower Friday, June 7, 2024 in Paris. The Paris Olympics organizers mounted the rings on the Eiffel Tower on Friday as the French capital marks 50 days until the start of the Summer Games. The 95-foot-long and 43-foot-high structure of five rings, made entirely of recycled French steel, will be displayed on the south side of the 135-year-old historic landmark in central Paris, overlooking the Seine River. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

A newly ordained Catholic priest is launched in the air by friends and family outside the Duomo Cathedral after his ordination ceremony in Milan, Italy, Saturday, June 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

An aerial view shows lava from an active volcano engulfing the road near Grindavik, Iceland, Saturday, June 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco di Marco)

The sun rises above the active crater of the volcano near Grindavik, Iceland, Monday, June 10, 2024. A volcano in southwestern Iceland has been erupting spewing red lava close to the coastal town of Grindavik. (AP Photo/Marco di Marco)

Pope Francis blesses a pregnant woman at the end of his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, June 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators lie on the ground as they protest against Israeli attacks on Gaza, in Pamplona, northern Spain, on Saturday, June 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)

A vendor sells newspapers in Lilongwe, Malawi, Wednesday, June 12, 2024, following the death of Malawi's Vice President, Saulos Chilima, in a plane crash Monday. The Malawi government says that Chilima will be honored with a state funeral after he was killed along with eight other people in a plane crash. (AP Photo/Thoko Chikondi)

Mourners comfort one another at the home of Malawi's Vice President Saulos Chilima in Lilongwe, Malawi, Wednesday, June 12, 2024, Chilima, who was killed in a plane crash on Monday, will be honored with a state funeral after he was killed along with eight other people in the crash, according to Malawi's government. (AP Photo/Thoko Chikondi)

French President Emmanuel Macron appears on a television screen at the French far-right National Rally party election night headquarters, Sunday, June 9, 2024 in Paris. French President Emanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called a new legislative election after defeat in the EU vote. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)

Ukrainian national guard servicemen of Khartia brigade take cover after firing towards Russian positions by a D-20 cannon at the frontline near Kharkiv, Ukraine, Monday, June 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Drag queen Bernat Bodes, known as Pitita, left, takes a break from her duties as president of a polling station during the European Parliament elections in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, June 9, 2024. Polling stations have opened across Europe as voters from 20 countries cast ballots in elections that are expected to shift the European Union's parliament to the right and could reshape the future direction of the world's biggest trading bloc. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A child peers from a voting cabin during European and local elections in Baleni, Romania, Sunday, June 9, 2024. Voters across the European Union are going to the polls on the final day of voting for the European parliamentary elections to choose their representatives for the next five-year term. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

Dissent is thriving this fall at American colleges, and not just among student activists. With student protests limited by new restrictions, faculty have taken up the cause.

To faculty, new protest rules threaten freedom of speech — and the freedom to think, both central to university life. This semester, some of the most visible demonstrations have involved professors speaking up for the right to protest itself.

Last spring, pro-Palestinian tent encampments crowded schools and disrupted commencement plans, drawing accusations of antisemitism and prompting new limits.

At Indiana University, an “expressive activity policy” rolled out in August prohibits protests after 11 p.m., bans camping on campus, and requires pre-approval for signs. In defiance, each Sunday a group of faculty members, students and community members gather on campus for candlelight vigils that extend past the 11 p.m. deadline.

Russ Skiba, a professor emeritus who has attended the vigils, said the new restrictions are part of a larger movement to limit academic freedom on campuses.

In Indiana, the Republican governor in March signed a law increasing state oversight of public universities. The law, sponsored by a lawmaker who said colleges suffer from “monolithic thinking,” subjects faculty to post-tenure reviews over whether they are fostering diversity of thought and keeping their political views out of the classroom. Skiba and other Indiana professors widely opposed the bill, which they criticized as vague and subject to interpretation.

“Universities are bastions of free speech, but when you have a movement that is anti-democratic, one of the places that is most attacked is freedom of speech,” Skiba said.

Faculty members at colleges elsewhere around the country have pushed back on the new rules with protests, vigils and demands for explanation.

A group of Harvard University professors held a “study-in” at a campus library on Oct. 16 in support of pro-Palestinian students who were temporarily banned from the library for holding a similar demonstration. In September, a group representing University of California faculty filed a complaint alleging the system sought to chill their academic freedom and keep from teaching about the Israel-Hamas war “in a way that does not align with the University’s own position.”

To some professors, the protest restrictions are also a labor issue.

Colleges have been granting tenure to fewer professors, and facing pressure in some areas to do away with it altogether. Legislatures in several states have taken an interest in how topics around race, gender and history are taught. Protest guidelines handed down by administrators are another way the faculty's say in university affairs is being diminished, some professors say.

“We have to, as faculty, organize and demand the sort of shared governance that gives us a right to review and challenge these policies,” said Todd Wolfson, a journalism and media studies professor at Rutgers University and the president of the American Association of University Professors. “They’re not made by people coming out of the academic arm of our institutions.”

Tensions on campuses nationwide have been high since the war began over a year ago, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters.

Colleges have been under tremendous pressure, including from Republicans in Congress, to protect students from discrimination while upholding free speech. Demonstrations last spring blocked foot traffic in parts of some campuses and included instances of antisemitic imagery and rhetoric. Some Jewish faculty members and students have the protests made them feel unsafe.

Shirin Vossoughi, a Northwestern University professor, was among 52 faculty members who signed an open letter opposing the school's new demonstration policy as caving to political pressure to silence certain types of activism. She said the rules crack down not just on free speech, but pro-Palestinian voices in particular.

“A lot of universities have rewritten their demonstration and code of conduct policies this summer, and I think my first thought is that it is very clear that it’s in response to dissent around Palestine," she said.

During the protests last spring, some faculty members joined ranks with demonstrators. Others acted as mediators for students they see as under their care and protection. Faculty voted no confidence against leaders of schools including Columbia University, the University of Massachusetts, Brandeis University, and Cal Poly Humboldt over their handling of the protests.

At Northwestern University, Steven Thrasher was among three faculty members charged by university police for obstructing law enforcement during last spring's protests. He was suspended and removed from teaching this fall while under investigation by the university.

“The way that I saw my role was as a protector of the students' safety and of their ability to express themselves,” Thrasher said this fall. “I knew as soon as I started seeing violence happening towards students that I would do what I could.”

While schools say the rules are meant to limit disruptions, faculty members say they have the effect of neutralizing dissent.

“The whole point of a protest is to be seen and heard,” said Michael Thaddeus, a mathematics professor at Columbia University, where new rules require advance notice and prevent demonstrations that “substantially inhibit the primary purposes” of an area of campus. “Free speech rights aren’t served if you can only speak into the void and not have anybody hear you, and that includes the right to be seen and heard by people who don’t like what you have to say.”

Professors also drew a connection to the growing percentage of lecturers, adjuncts and professors who do not have tenure protections. Professors increasingly see the issue of speech and academic freedom as a labor issue as a result of the crackdowns, said Risa Lieberwitz, AAUP's general counsel.

“We’re seeing unionization growing and increasing,” she said. “I think to some extent it’s because it’s so important to organize, to claim democratic rights.”

Wolfson said professors must stand up for students’ rights to demonstrate and speak freely.

“Their freedom of speech rights are the lifeblood of the university,” Wolfson said. “We cannot have a university based on critical thinking and exploring questions if we’re going to clamp down on students’ rights to protest something they think is a massive problem, and if they see a way for the university to actually engage in it productively.”

Associated Press writer Collin Binkley contributed to this report.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

FILE - Faculty and staff march on the UCLA campus, after nighttime clashes between Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestinian groups, Wednesday, May 1, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

FILE - A demonstrator waves a flag on the Columbia University campus at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment, in New York, April 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)

FILE - UCLA faculty and staff members hold up signs during a news conference at UCLA in Los Angeles, Thursday, May 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)