International experts participate in virtual lectures organized by International Migration and Refugee Studies master’s program

Birzeit University’s International Migration and Refugee Studies master’s program held three online lectures with the participation of six international experts from Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Turkiye and France. The lectures investigated migration and policies of exclusion and inclusion.

In the first lecture, Jaber Suleiman, Palestinian researcher and consultant in refugee studies, and Rabee Qais, lawyer and director of the Lebanese Foundation for Permanent Civil Peace, explored the status of refugees in Lebanon in view of governance policies and the sectarian order as well as the attitudes of official and judicial institutions toward refugees. Suleiman examined the status of Palestinian refugees, whereas Qais examined the status of Syrians in Lebanon.

The second lecture investigated asylum in Turkiye. Bilal Salaymeh, researcher at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, presented a paper on Syrian refugees in Turkiye and Turkiye-European Union relations. Dr. Mohammad Affan, director of Al Sharq Strategic Research in Istanbul, presented his paper “The Political Activism of Refugees and Immigrants and Transnational Repression: Egyptians in Turkiye.”

In the third lecture, Dr. Salam Kawakibi, director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Paris, examined asylum in Europe. Dr. Hichem Derradji, political science professor at Blida 2 University in Algeria, presented his paper “European Policies for Migration and Asylum: Governance and Securitization.”

Those lectures are part of a series of events organized by the Politics of Migration and Asylum course, which receives international and local specialists to address migration through different academic fields.