http://freehichamyezza.wordpress.com/
Hicham Yezza, a popular, respected and valued former PhD student and current employee of the University of Nottingham faces deportation to Algeria on Sunday 1st June. This follows his unjust arrest under the Terrorism Act 2000 on Wednesday 14th May alongside Rizwaan Sabir and their release without charge six days later.
It has subsequently become clear that these arrests, which the police had claimed related to so-called “radical materials” involved an Al Qaeda manual downloaded by Sabir as part of his research into political Islam and emailed to Yezza for printing because Sabir couldn’t afford to get it printed himself. There has been a vocal response from lecturers and students. A petition is being circulated, letters have been sent by academics across the world and a demo is being planned for Wednesday the 28th May. This has clearly been deeply embarrassing to a government currently advocating an expansion of anti-terror powers.
On his release Hicham was re-arrested under immigration legislation and, due to confusion over his visa documentation, charged with offences relating to his immigration status. He sought legal advice and representation over these matters whilst in custody. On Friday 23rd May, he was suddenly served with a deportation notice and moved to an immigration detention centre. The deportation is being urgently appealed.
Hicham has been resident in the U.K for 13 years, during which time he has studied for both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Nottingham.
He is an active member of debating societies, a prominent member of an arts and theatre group, and has written for, and edited, Ceasefire, the Nottingham Student Peace Movement magazine for the last five years.
He is well known and popular on campus amongst the university community and has established himself as a voracious reader and an authority on literature and music. An application for British citizenship was underway, and he had been planning to make his yearly trip to Wales for the Hay Festival when he was suddenly arrested.
The authorities are clearly trying to circumvent the criminal justice system and force Hicham out of the country. Normally they would have to wait for criminal proceedings to finish, but here they have managed to convince the prosecution to drop the charges in an attempt to remove him a quick, covert manner. The desire for justice is clearly not the driving force behind this, as Hicham was happy to stand trial and prove his innocence.
Hicham had a large social network and many of his friends are mobilising to prevent his deportation. Matthew Butcher, 20, a student at the University of Nottingham and member of the 2008-9 Students Union Executive, said, “This is an abhorrent abuse of due process, pursued by a government currently seeking to expand anti-terror powers. Following the debacle of the initial ‘terror’ arrests they now want to brush the whole affair under the carpet by deporting Hicham.”
Supporters have been able to talk with Hicham and he said, “The Home Office operates with a Gestapo mentality. They have no respect for human dignity and human life. They treat foreign nationals as disposable goods – the recklessness and the cavalier approach they have belongs to a totalitarian state. I thank everyone for their support – it’s been extremely heartening and humbling. I’m grateful to everyone who has come to my aid and stood with me in solidarity, from students to Members of Parliament. I think this really reflects the spirit of the generous, inclusive Britain we know – and not the faceless, brutal, draconian tactics of the Home Office.”
[ENDS]
Contact: Sam Walton, 07948590262, staffandstudents@googlemail.com
GAZA: ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCES (IDF) RAID KILLS EIGHT, INCLUDING A MOTHER AND HER FOUR CHILDREN: Yet this time the Italian Ambassador did not request a suspension of the UN Security Council meeting in protest.
Rome, April 29th, 2008
Yesterday Israeli tank shells killed eight civilians, including a mother, her four children ages seven, six and four, and a fifteen month old baby. They were having breakfast when they died under the rubble of their home in Beit Hanoun, in the northernmost part of the Gaza Strip.
Last Wednesday, April 23rd, a meeting of the UN Security Council dedicated to the Middle-East was suspended at the request of Italian Ambassador Marcello Spatafora in protest of a statement by Libyan Ambassador Giadalla Ettalhi, who compared “the actual conditions in Gaza to the situation of Nazi’s concentration camps” during the Second World War. I have never said, and never will say, that Israeli policies towards the Palestinian people are the same as those adopted by Nazis against Jews, communists, homosexuals and gypsies. The uniqueness of the Holocaust belongs to our European history, the same is true for the persecutions against Jews, and we have said “never again.” Therefore, I don’t blame our Ambassador for raising objections to comparisons of Nazi and Israeli policies, as made by the Libyan Representative when talking about Gaza.
Yet, I strongly disagree with our Ambassador for not taking any initiative to stop the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, or to bring the collective punishment of the exhausted civilian population in Gaza to an end. Day after day, we hear of civilians dying, of bombardment, of house demolitions, of land confiscations: why doesn’t our Ambassador feel indignation on behalf of those women, children and elderly who in Gaza have no bread left to eat? And also for those in the Strip who are sick and are dying since they can’t access medical treatment? Or, finally, for those students in Gaza who, having obtained scholarships from renowned Universities abroad, can’t leave the Strip because Gaza is closed and its population imprisoned as in an open-air jail? On April 24th, The United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugee aid (UNRWA) was forced to stop food deliveries due to the cut-off of fuel by the Israeli Authorities.
Is this not enough of an outrage for our Ambassador? Isn’t it sufficiently outrageous that Israel has refused to grant exit permits to the 1,562 Palestinian patients who need to leave Gaza for urgent treatments? Or that 133 Palestinians have already died in the Strip because of these refusals? I call on our Ambassador to go to Gaza and to see the little bodies of premature babies who may die for the lack of electricity or fuel due to the Israeli siege, remembering though, that even if he wanted to go he might not be able to: the Israeli Authorities, as the occupier, decide who can enter or exit. Even Nobel Peace Prize winner and former US President Jimmy Carter was recently denied entry.
It’s really time for Italian diplomats, EU governments and the entire International Community stop using indignation as a hypocritical tool for a ‘double standard’ policy. They must start listening and supporting the frequent denunciations of Israel’s human rights violations: denunciations coming from Palestinian, Israeli and International organizations, as well as the UN. Even the World Bank, just yesterday, highlighted the dramatic deterioration of Palestinian economy in the Occupied Territories, where, due to the “restrictions imposed by Israel to the freedom of movement and of access in the West Bank,” 35% of the population lives in conditions of absolute poverty. In 2007 the economic growth fell to zero, with continued stagnation expected in 2008. The unemployment rate is currently 23% in West Bank and 33% in Gaza Strip in spite of the 7.7 billion dollars in aid promised by donor countries.
After 40 years of occupation and 60 years of Nakbah, Palestinians have the right not only to aid but above all a future, a future of justice and peace and the creation of their own State: autonomous, sovereign, independent, based on ‘67 borders, with Jerusalem as shared capital and in peaceful co-existence and in security with the Israeli State. They request not just indignation but freedom, independence, legality and real steps from the Israeli Government and the International Community. These could begin simply by ending the military occupation, implementing UN resolutions (that have languished for years), and by ensuring the respect of universal rights. All this will bring freedom and security to Palestinians and also to Israelis: the children of Sderot will no longer have to live in fear of the illegal barrages of rockets raining on their town.
Further information: Luisa Morgantini +39 348 39 21 465 Rome office: +39 06 69 95 02 17 www.luisamorgantini.net
Gaza – Ma’an – A Palestinian man suffering from a heart attack died Tuesday after Israeli forces twice refused to allow his ambulance to enter Israel where he was to be treated.
A Palestinian human rights group is saying Israeli soldiers fired on the ambulance.
According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Seventy-seven-year-old Nemer Mohammed Salim Shuhaiber from Gaza City was admitted to the intensive care unit at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Sunday suffering an acute heart attack. The Palestinian Ministry of Health ordered Shuhaiber to be transferred to an Israeli hospital for further treatment.
By Monday, the Health Ministry had secured Israeli approval for the transfer. When the ambulance carrying Shuhaiber and his two sons arrived at Erez border crossing, PHCR said, Israeli soldiers fired on the vehicle, forcing it to return Gaza City.
Medical officials made a second attempt to transfer the patient on Tuesday. This time, PHCR said, the ambulance was delayed for five hours at the border while Israeli soldiers inspected the ambulance. Shuhaiber, still in serious condition, was laid on the ground in direct sunlight for over an hour. At the end of the inspection, the border guards order the ambulance back to Gaza, where Shuhaiber died.
Shuhaiber also reportedly suffered from diabetes and hypertension.
According to PHCR, this is the fifth death in six months resulting from the obstruction of ambulances at Erez crossing.
From “The Guardian”
We find it deeply ironic, given the recent heated debate on the proposed academic boycott of Israeli universities by the UCU (Report, September 29), that the Israeli supreme court on October 2 ruled that Kahled al-Mudallal, a Bradford University student, cannot leave Gaza and return to his studies in the UK. We hope the voices that criticised the boycott and called so vociferously for preserving academic freedom and promoting dialogue will lend their support to those of us calling on the Israeli government to reverse the supreme court decision, and on the UK government to do all in its power to support the human rights of students like Kahled.
This is not just an issue of academic freedom, important though that is, but is a flagrant breach of a fundamental human right to education. This judgment undermines both academic freedom and the very possibility of constructive dialogue across communities.
Sarah Perrigo,
Dr Mandy Turner,
Prof Jenny Pearce,
Prof Mike Pugh,
Prof Donna Pankhurst,
Prof Nana Poku,
Valentina Bartolucci and 10 others
Department of peace studies, University of Bradford
______________
The right to education is a human right as stated in the UN universal declaration of human rights. Khaled al-Mudallal is one of hundreds of Palestinian students who are currently unable to leave Gaza to begin the new academic year. The British government should do everything in its power to ensure that Israel lifts the restrictions that are preventing Khaled and other students leaving Gaza to complete their education.
Richard Burden MP
Gemma Tumelty President, NUS
Sally Hunt General secretary, UCU
Ruqayyah Collector NUS Black Students’ Campaign
Dan Judelson Jews for Justice for Palestinians
Professor Irene Bruegel
Betty Hunter Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Professor Lynne Segal
Richard Kuper
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2591922.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2184016,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2184210,00.html