Conal Urquhart gives the impression that Juliano Mer Khamis was an unpopular, quixotic outsider, disliked by most and hated by some, and a victim of irreconcilable cultural differences (A killing inspired by drama not politics, 22 April). He quotes extensively from a "fatwa-style" extremist leaflet and speaks with a "group of elderly women" . But to the public who went to the Freedom Theatre and the actors and students who participated in its productions, this Palestinian theatre was extraordinarily popular and successful.
The theatre's latest production, Alice in Wonderland (which we, a group of artists with New York Theatre Workshop, attended just days before Juliano was killed) was performed 35 times and was often sold out. While Alice was banned for school-age children by the Palestine education ministry on the grounds that it was "immoral", this same ministry often brought school children from all over the West Bank in large groups to the Freedom Theatre. This belies the assertion that Juliano "only managed to alienate those he most wanted to inspire".
Urquhart frames Juliano's murder as a struggle between "liberal western values of freedom of expression and a more conservative, traditional world view". This is an outdated opposition. Ideals such as freedom of expression and equality have long been an integral part of the Palestinian struggle, even if these same values have been eroded by a decades-long, brutal occupation.
Juliano did "alienate" and anger a powerful minority of the Palestinian communities he served – but what theatre that is truly challenging, truly radical, doesn't? Let's hope that theatres around the world will take inspiration from the Freedom Theatre, because necessary and vital theatre is threatening, controversial, and therefore, at times, deadly for its practitioners.
Naomi Wallace
Erin B Mee
Otterburn, North Yorkshire