I do not request reblogs often, but reblog this no matter where you are from so people from the EU can see and sign this. Please. Let's make a difference. Thank you! ⚔️🌈
I do not request reblogs often, but reblog this no matter where you are from so people from the EU can see and sign this. Please. Let's make a difference. Thank you! ⚔️🌈
Dana Abuqamar, who lost 15 family members in Gaza, said the Home Office revoked her visa on ‘security grounds’
The UK government has revoked the student visa of a Palestinian student who lost relatives in Gaza after she spoke at a demonstration at the University of Manchester.
Dana Abuqamar, a law student who heads the Friends of Palestine Society at the University of Manchester, said the UK government revoked her visa on “national security” grounds, after claiming she was a risk to public safety.
“The claim they are making is baseless and violates my rights as a resident here in the UK. My legal team has lodged a human rights appeal against this decision to revoke my student visa in my last and final year as a law student,” Abuqamar said, speaking to Al Jazeera English, confirming that her visa had been revoked.
Last year, Abuqamar revealed that she had lost at least 15 relatives in Gaza after the Israeli army bombed a three-storey building in the besieged enclave.
“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.
“Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, but it seems to not apply to ethnic minorities, particularly Muslims and Palestinians like myself. We must reject the double standard in the application of human rights by public authorities and rise against this oppression.”
A spokesperson for the UK Home Office said it did not respond to individual cases.
[ID: A lamp post with the Palestine flag hanging from it. a sign says "the revolution will be incentivized feed the people protect the people house the people educate the people" a sign below it says "cease fire" in all caps]
numbers dwindled as dead week approaches. we only had ~11 people this night. cops left expired citations early in the night but left and did not return! one demonstrated real maturity (/sarcasm) by putting an L to their forehead while passing us
we are still here and we will be here until UNM divests!!
day 6! last night police gave notice that we are not allowed to sleep there anymore. they harassed the group 4 times during the night to make sure no one was sleeping. people stayed overnight with little to no rest.
day 7! resident life and student housing wants us gone by Monday. we have no plans to leave. last night the cops visited several times but most of the time they left before reaching camp. one of the times that they made it to camp they pushed me around alongside at least 2 other people. no one was injured or arrested.
if anyone could support us with some phone calls we could really use some help. police have been becoming increasingly violent. in particular officer Nicole Thorn (badge # 1238) and Travis Lente (badge # 1252) have been violent towards students. please help by calling the following numbers and demanding that, at minimum, they be reassigned due to their pattern of escalation and aggression. PROTECT THE PACK! HANDS OFF OUR STUDENTS!
cops came by again and shoved me again. this time not just shoulder checking me but using their hands to full force shove me. I was the only one shoved and I was not injured. they are planning to remove us tonight and if they're using this much force in the daytime they will only use more at night.
[ID: a sign with a duck on the left wearing a kufiya. on the right it says "UNM Divests Dislocate Declare These are our demands" in all caps]
the camp survived the night! happy day 8!!!
we! are! still! here!
RLSH still wants us gone today so we'll likely be facing violence from the police. we're very worried about the possibility of tear gas being deployed in camp. we are prepared for this but calling UNM PD is so helpful. let them know that the world is watching them and that they will not get away with harming us.
today we're holding a rally and march at 6pm. we demand:
Declare; a public call for ceasefire and an end to the occupation
Disclosure; of all UNM investments
Divestment; from all companies involved in the genocide of Palestinians
camp is still going! it's day 10? 11? I've lost track I pulled an all nighter yesterday it doesn't feel like the protest was two nights ago. a total of 16 people were arrested and many people experienced police brutality. multiple people sustained injuries from the police. almost, if not all, of our comrades are out of jail
[ID: a person inside a building with orange-pink hair wearing a face shield sitting on a water jug in front of a line of protesters holding box lids as shields. they are facing a line of riot cops.]
It's day 12! We are still here and UNM still has not divested so we will stay here!
We have officially put up a statement discussing what happened on Monday night and how it was handled by the university
Putting the full statement beneath a cut because it's long:
We, the UNM Palestinian Solidarity Encampment, an autonomous community, exist because 42,000+ Palestinians have been slaughtered over the past 209 days by Israeli forces and the University of New Mexico funds this genocide through its continued investments. Our community is a UNM student body majority as well as Indigenous and Jewish activists, alumni, and faculty taking a stand against the ongoing complicity in the genocide of Palestinians.
On the evening of April 29th, 2024, UNM students, faculty, and community members marched into the Student Union Building with the intention to occupy it. This action came after 7 months of peacefully protesting the genocide in Gaza, two months after demanding the UNM Board of Regents resolve to divest from the illegitimate state of Israel, and after a week of spending each day and night camped at the UNM Duck Pond, where we remain. We are inspired by UNM students before us, who occupied the Student Union Building in May of 1970 to protest the Vietnam War, by UNM students in 1985 who occupied Scholes Hall to demand the university divest from South Africa, and by the students from over 150 universities around the country, who are working alongside us for a Free Palestine in our lifetime.
The administration waited until 3:00 am (when our numbers had dwindled from hundreds to about 50) to send in state police in full riot gear. They broke windows and furniture to forcefully enter the building. They tore open tents where people were sleeping, dragged us out, pushed us to the ground, forced us face down, and handcuffed us. They maced us. They told us to leave the building as they blocked the only exits. 5 students were arrested, alongside 11 community members, including alumni. Among those arrested were two Jewish students. Protestors did their best to force their bodies in front of cops to protect students, knowing the risks. Some were spared. Many who were arrested were thrown over tables, over chairs, and onto the ground. The broken fingers, bruises, damaged nerves, cuts, and emotional trauma from that night are not as quickly erased as the chalk on the SUB walls.
Now we have been accused of “being outside agitators”. How can any of us be outsiders, when it is our tax dollars, our donations as alumni, and our tuition as students that is being invested in genocide? How can the administration claim to know how many of us are students, when students are not able to be public about our participation without fear of expulsion? How can we be accused of “criminal activity” when there is a historical precedent set by the very students at our university to cry for justice amidst the administration’s deafening silence?
In her campus-wide email on Tuesday, President Stokes failed to mention why we are here, or that she has the power to end our encampment at any time by meeting our needs and demands. She failed to mention that the UNM Foundation’s $713.8 million Consolidated Investment Fund is invested with six management firms that hold shares in ICL Group, Ltd, an Israeli chemical manufacturer that is the sole provider of white phosphorus to the US Army and Israel Defense Forces. Two of those firms, Arrowstreet Capital and The Vanguard Group, are among this manufacturer’s largest shareholders. White phosphorus causes severe burns that penetrate through bone, and it is well documented that the Israeli military uses white phosphorus against Palestinians in densely populated areas. This is just one example. Until UNM discloses information on investments, we cannot know the full extent of our institution’s contribution to the genocide of Palestinians.
Since our encampment was formed, we have provided free food, hot coffee and cold water for students and community members each day. Musicians share their music here. Professors hold their classes here. We tend an interfaith altar to grieve and pray. We offer medical and safety supplies free to the community. We learn together and we cry out together for justice and liberation. All this has been dismissed as disruption. President Stokes said we were wrong to disrupt university operations. Is it so wrong to disrupt when doing nothing puts money into the hands of weapons manufacturers, poisons our community, and poisons our land?
The University of New Mexico acknowledges that it is built on the rightful homelands of Indigenous Peoples from Tiwa, Tewa, and Towa communities. Indigenous Peoples both within and outside of Tiwa, Tewa, and Towa communities have been at the forefront of activism. We, the students at the University of New Mexico Palestinian Solidarity Encampment believe in calling for Land Back for all Indigenous Peoples, whether they be Tiwa, Tewa, and Towa communities in what is called New Mexico, or Palestinians in what is called Israel. The University of New Mexico has performatively tokenized the Indigenous peoples of this land over the course of its lifespan, but refuses to hear our voice when we call for our liberation and liberation for Palestinians.
In President Stokes’ email, she used the words “precious” and “important,” not to refer to the students who were brutalized by militarized police nor the tens of thousands of Palestinian children who have been brutally murdered, but to refer to a building. Let us remind you: human life is precious. Every Palestinian’s safety is important. We will write it on the walls until you listen and act. We will not stop. We will not rest. Disclose, President Stokes. Divest.
Land Back here! Land Back in Palestine! Land Back everywhere!
It's day 15!!!! we are officially the longest occupation of UNM campus in history. I have mixed feelings about this- it's amazing that we've stuck around for so long but I wish we didn't have to. I wish our demands were met so we could leave.
As a rule of thumb, don't reblog donation posts or people asking for donations unless they've been vetted and reblogged by Palestinian bloggers. We usually go to lengths to verify this shit because we know scammers have been faking to get people to send them money, using the urgency of our genocide as bait.
It's disgusting this is what we're dealing with, but people are losing money because of some truly evil people out there.
Accounts don't just randomly spring up on tumblr without gofundmes while asking for someone to help them create a campaign. Fuck out of here with that shit.
I'm also gonna stop listing the reasons why I recognize something is a scam. It's becoming more and more clear there is 1 person behind this STRING of scams and they're leaving less trails behind but it still reeks of them and their MO.
DO NOT TRUST ANY GOFUNDME OR REQUEST FOR CROWDFUNDING THAT PALESTINIAN BLOGGERS HAVEN'T VERIFIED.
At this point I'm fine receiving a bunch of inbox messages asking me to vet x y z so y'all can avoid this shit. But please have some critical thinking!
Whether you wanna read the whole thing or not idc.
REBLOG IT.
The person this was about deleted the 4th or 5th scam account they made and are definitely gonna make a new one soon. I don't want anybody falling for this anymore.
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