How would you feel if during your senior year of college, just a few days before graduation, you were dragged away to jail because you were on the wrong side of town? This situation happened to twenty two year old Berlanty Azzam from Gaza. Berlanty Azzam had completed four years of college and was just two months short of completing her degree in business management. Berlanty Azzam was a student at Bethlehem University since 2005, but on October twenty eighth, she was stopped at a routine Israeli checkpoint near Ramallah, in the West Bank. Berlanty Azzam was on her way to a job interview when she was stopped because her ID card said Gaza City on it. Azzam was immediately arrested for being in the West Bank without permission. Within a few hours Azzam was blindfolded, handcuffed, and removed to Gaza by force without any kind of hearing or access to a lawyer before she was deported. Azzam did admit to not having the required permission to study in the West Bank because it was becoming increasingly more difficult for Gazans to obtain since Hamas, the Palestinian military movement took over Gaza in 2007. The Israeli Supreme Court ruled that students from Gaza had to obtain a permit in order to go to the West Bank.
This article has gotten a lot of widespread attention. Many people feel as though she should be able to finish her two months of schooling in order to complete her degree for business management. I think that she should not have been taken by such force which she was arrested. Blind folding, handcuffing, and being removed to Gaza by force without having any type of hearing or access to a lawyer before being departed seems a bit over the top. I know security is very important, but a woman’s rights are also very important too.
http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/11/18/2131398.aspx
1 comment:
It does not surprise me at all how authorities many time focus on the legal aspect. Many migrants are deported now days in different parts of the world just for the simple fact that they lack the “appropriate documentation”. It is sad how governments allow innocent people to be punished for the flaws of our governmental system. It is sad to realize that the ones that always end up paying are those who deserve it the least such as this student that was doing nothing but getting an education.
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