Student stand-in solidarity with lecturers forced out of Palestine
Students from Birzeit University led a solidarity stand-in on campus on Tuesday 17, 2019. The student-led initiative “We Want our Teachers with Us” comes amidst the university’s fight against the escalating discriminatory Israeli policy that aims to prevent international academics from staying in the West Bank and refuses to renew visas for those with teaching contracts.
The Right to Education Campaign, a student-led initiative that works to expose Israel’s systematic obstruction of education in Palestine, helped the students in organizing the event.
Currently, twelve international lecturers are living and teaching under the threat of having to leave Palestine. Between 2017 and 2019, seven faculty members were not able to continue their teaching because Israel refused to renew their visas. In 2019, Israel denied entry to two international academics with Birzeit University contracts.
Nasser Amouri, a representative of the Right to Education Campaign at Birzeit University, explained that this initiative speaks up on behalf of every academic and student who is faced with these outrageous Israeli policies. “We, as students, call upon all international organization to take action to halt the policies that hinder our basic right to education,” he stated.
