Richard Fung
Overview
As of May 2024, Fung was listed as a member of the advisory board of the “Hearing Palestine” initiative at UofT. The initiative states that its goal is to “Provide an intellectual hub for the study of Palestine.”
As of July 2024, Fung’s personal website said he was a “Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Art” at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD). In 2014, Fung was listed as a professor at OCAD.
As of July 2024, Fung’s LinkedIn profile said he had been the co-founder and director of production at Black Belt Productions since February 2013. His LinkedIn also said he had been an instructor at the Toronto Film School since October 2016.
As of the same date, Fung’s LinkedIn said he graduated from Humber College with a degree in cinematography and film/video production in 2008.
Also as of July 2024, Fung was listed online as having graduated with “a degree in cinema studies as well as an ME in sociology and cultural studies,” both from UofT.
As of July 2024, Fung’s LinkedIn said he was located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Richard Fung’s Support for the Pro-Hamas Encampment at the University of Toronto (UofT)
As of July 2024, Richard Fung showed support for the encampment by signing on to a statement put out by UofT community members. The May 20, 2024, statement was part of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
The statement backed all the encampment’s demands, including divesting from the alleged “apartheid policies of the state of Israel and its ongoing genocide in Gaza."
To show support, Fung submitted a “support selfie,” where text beside his face said: “DISCLOSE. DIVEST. CUT TIES.”
On May 2, 2024, UofT Occupy for Palestine (Occupy UofT) activists “stormed down” fencing around UofT’s Kings College Circle and set up a pro-Hamas and pro-BDS encampment called the “People’s Circle for Palestine.” Protesters chanted [00:02:59] for “intifada” and celebrated “resistance” [00:02:45]. Both terms are calls for terrorism. Activists chanted [00:01:28; 00:02:21] for Israel’s destruction multiple times.
After the October 7, 2023 massacre of nearly 1,200 Israelis, the inverted red triangle -
- became a Hamas symbol. It appeared on large signs at the encampment and was featured in other encampment-related activism. Openly pro-Hamas marches began elsewhere in the city and ended at the encampment. In one incident, pro-Hamas activists punched a Jewish man, stole his Israeli flag and shouted anti-Semitic slurs.Protesters occupied [00:00:17] the area from May to July 2024, despite UofT warning they were trespassing. On July 3, 2024, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice issued an injunction at UofT’s request, requiring the encampment to be cleared. Occupy UofT dismantled the encampment and wrote a statement that ended: “Long live the intifada.”
Supporting BDS
Fung was listed as a moderator on a panel held on September 24, 2016 at the 2016 TORONTO PALESTINE FILM FESTIVAL (TPFF) titled: “BOYCOTT, CENSORSHIP AND THE ARTS.”On April 29, 2014, Fung signed [no. 37] a petition to “Boycott Israeli Cinema and TV Studies Conference at Tel Aviv University.”
The petition called upon scholars to boycott an upcoming conference at Tel Aviv University (TAU) and provided a link to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).
On April 23, 2011, Fung signed an open letter condemning a Canadian film festival’s decision to partner with an Israeli organization. The letter promoted BDS and called upon the festival to cut its ties with Israel, which they described as “a government that endorses and institutes apartheid policies.”
Fung was part of a committee that drafted “The Toronto Declaration: No Celebration of Occupation,” published by the BDS movement on September 4, 2009. The purpose of the declaration was to condemn the Toronto International Film Festival for featuring a “celebratory spotlight” on the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.
On August 4, 2006, Fung signed [no. 298] a statement, authored by PACBI, calling for the cultural boycott of Israel.
In signing the statement, Fung and others called “upon the International community to join us in the boycott of Israeli film festivals, Israeli public venues, and Israeli institutions supported by the government, and to end all cooperation with these cultural and artistic institutions that to date have refused to take a stand against the Occupation, the root cause for this colonial conflict.”
BDS
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true.
One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”
Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”
In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”
The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.
BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.
The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.
Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.
BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.
Social Media and Weblinks
University Website:https://www2.ocadu.ca/bio/richard-fung [Deleted]LinkedIn:https://ca.linkedin.com/in/rfung8
Personal Website:http://www.richardfung.ca/
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Ontario Art and Design
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Lynn Al-Nasser,
- Jon Soske,
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
Photos & Screenshots
