LOCKED OUT
Glasgow University rector claims he is ‘barred from entering Europe’
Ghassan Abu-Sittah has been out-spoken on the Palestine conflict
GLASGOW University's controversial new rector has claimed that he has been "barred" from entering Europe.
Gaza war surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah said he was on his way to France to speak in front of the French Senate.
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After arriving at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, French authorities this morning, told him that Germany had enforced a one-year Schengen-wide ban on his passport.
Abu-Sittah was due to appear to provide testimony on Gaza's healthcare system and Israel's attacks against it.
The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians claimed that Abu-Sittah remains under French detention and has his phone seized.
Tayab Ali, director of the ICJP, claimed the phone was seized during a call and that the rector is now unable to speak to his lawyers.
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He said: "Ghassan a witness on record to war crimes has had his phone taken by French airport authorities while I was speaking to him and is now unable to speak to his lawyers. We are trying to get access. This is outrageous.
Mr Ali added: German politicians have repeatedly claimed that Israel’s security is Germany’s 'reason of state' .
"They are behaving as such: to shield Israel from criticism, they are denying the rights to speech and movement of a renowned doctor, who experienced first-hand Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s healthcare system.
"ICJP are instructing lawyers in France and Germany to see that the German’s authoritarian crackdown on free speech and witness testimony won’t stand.”
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Abu-Sittah took to social media, today, writing: "Fortress Europe silencing the witnesses to the genocide while Israel kills them in prison.
"I am at Charles De Gaule Airport. They are preventing me from entering France.
"I am supposed to speak at the French Senate today. They say the Germans put a 1 year ban on my entry to Europe.
In April, he was denied entry to Germany to give a witness statement while working in hospitals in Gaza.
The plastic surgeon claimed he was questioned for several hours by authorities before he was deported back to the UK.
He claimed that he was not allowed to dial into the event virtually, as he was told it would break German law.
PA reports that German cops pulled the plug on the pro-Palestinian conference.
We previously told how he stood to become rector on a platform of opposing the war, having spent weeks working in the conflict-ridden Al-Shifa Hospital and Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Palestine.
Addressing students at his installation at the university’s Bute Hall on Thursday night, he dedicated his appointment to his friends and former colleagues “executed” by the Israeli army and others still working in the warzone.
He concluded his speech with: “And so I want to end with hope, and in the words of the immortal Bobby Sands, our revenge will be the laughter of our children. Hasta la victoria siempre (ever onwards to victory).”
His words were backed by leading human rights lawyer and outgoing rector Aamer Anwar who shared the moment on social media.
The post was widely criticised online and Scottish Tory MSP Annie Wells, blasted the “inappropriate” speech.
Kenny Donaldson, director of the South East Fermanagh Foundation (SEFF) which supports more than 3500 victims and survivors of the IRA terrorist campaign, blasted the “deeply insulting” reference.
Abu-Sittah won an 80 per cent majority in an election by the uni’s student representative council at the end of March.
He will be responsible for sharing students’ views with the governing body at the university court.
Republican volunteer Sands, a convicted terrorist, died in jail in 1981 after going on hunger strike over demands to be treated as a political prisoner while at HM Prison Maze.
He had been elected MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone just weeks before his death at age 27.
He was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike in which nine Irish republican prisoners died.
The latest comments come five years after the uni was sent a parcel bomb from a group claiming to be the IRA in March 2019.
Emergency services carried out a controlled explosion at the west end campus following the discovery. The stamp was reported to have had Irish stamps with red hearts on them.
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A University of Glasgow spokesperson said at the time: “The Rector is nominated and elected by students and represents them at the University Court, the institution’s governing body.
“The Rector’s views do not represent those of the University.”