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UK revokes visa of law student who addressed pro-Palestine protest
Dana Abuqamar says her comments at a rally last year which raised suspicion were mischaracterised.
Dana Abuqamar, a 19-year-old Palestinian law student, says her visa has been revoked
[Screengrab/Al Jazeera]
By Al Jazeera Staff
Published On 10 May 202410 May 2024
The United Kingdom has revoked the visa of a Palestinian student after she participated in a pro-Palestine demonstration at her university.
Dana Abuqamar told Al Jazeera that the Home Office withdrew her visa casting her as a “national security” threat, following remarks she made at the protest last year.
“During this genocide, the UK Home Office decided to revoke my student visa following public statements supporting the Palestinian right to exercise under international law to resist oppression and break through the siege that was illegally placed on Gaza for over 16 years,” said Abuqamar, who leads the Friends of Palestine society at the University of Manchester.
“Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, but it seems to not apply to ethnic minorities, particularly Muslims and Palestinians like myself.”
Last year, the 19-year-old law student revealed that she had lost 15 family members during Israel’s war on Gaza.
Abuqamar, who is in her final year of study, spoke of a sense of “pride” at a pro-Palestine event last year, following Hamas’s October 7 attacks in Israel.
“We are really full of joy at what happened,” she said.
However, she later told the BBC that her comments were misconstrued and that the deaths of any “innocent civilian should not be condoned, ever”.
Hamas, the group which governs Gaza, launched an unprecedented incursion into southern Israel on October 7. During that assault, 1,390 people were killed and hundreds were taken captive. It sharply escalated the historic Israel-Palestine conflict, setting off Israel’s latest and deadliest war on Gaza.
To date, about 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the strip, much of which is reduced to rubble.
