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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 10:07 pm Post subject: Texas: Palestinian Children Gaoled For Being Stateless |
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Palestinian children are being gaoled in Texas, because they do not technically have a nationality, and therefore can not be deported back to their own country.
Children Without A Country
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In some ways Yassir's story is similar to one now being lived by three Texas families of Palestinian heritage. They are people without a country. From Palestine they have fled to the USA, sometimes through other countries. Immigration authorities have denied them asylum, ordered them deported, and they are being jailed indefinitely in legal purgatory while some country is found to take them.
But the Texas families are not stowaways. They entered the USA with visas and have always lived public lives in their pursuit of asylum in the USA, growing their opportunities and their families along the way. The Ibrahim family, for example, arrived with four children, gave birth to a fifth, and are expecting a sixth. For the Ibrahim children who have lived in Palestine, memories are not so good, and they fear going back to a place where they are subject to so many military assaults.
Maryam Ibrahim was about two years old in 2000 when a gas canister crashed into her Palestinian home, rendering her unconscious for lack of breath. Pleading to USA authorities for asylum in 2002, Maryam's father Salaheddin testified that his little girl was fearful of people in uniform. Yet USA authorities have denied asylum and placed Maryam in jail where family members say she is not allowed to run indoors or go outdoors, and where every night at 10 p.m. she is ordered into a cell separate from where her pregnant mother is being kept. Frequently, Maryam cries. Maryam shares the overnight cell with older sister Rodaina, while younger sister Faten shares a cell with mother Hanan. Family members confirm reports that Hanan is not getting medical attention for her pregnancy, placing Maryam's little brother-to-be at risk. |
This is really quite horrible. Children should not be in gaol. It's been shown to have serious consequences for their mental health. Nor should an unborn child be put in a situation where its mother is not receiving proper prenatal care. Isn't this happening in a country that is so obsessed with the rights of the unborn child?
It would be wonderful if there was a big enough outcry about it for this practice to be stopped. Unfortunately though, without the existence of a US equivalent of Steve McGarrette's favourite news outlet, The Guardian, it's not likely that the US public will get to hear much about it:
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Despite a near blackout from corporate media--who will often report about Hutto protest actions without mentioning the Palestinians--these three Texas families are attracting supporters, activists, and attorneys from near and far.
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I believe that in Australia (after a number of years, unfortunately) the Howard government was finally forced to stop placing the children of asylum seekers in detention camps. Sadly though this has still given rise to situations like this, where children are seperated from their families:
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| As a result of treatyless impunity, children from all three families continue to suffer. Zahra Ibrahim, the fifth child mentioned above--and a USA citizen--has been prevented from seeing her pregnant mother since the two were separated upon arrest in early November. |
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dulouz
Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Location: Uranus
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| Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 5:18 pm Post subject: |
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| We don't have "gaols" in the US, esp in Texas. I'm not certain what the article is about. |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 5:26 pm Post subject: |
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| the terrorist lover strikes again. |
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postfundie
Joined: 28 May 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 1:26 am Post subject: |
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seems like an isolated case of injustice....
If only the US had something akin to that piece of crap paper the 'Guardian' where people can write in editorials that 'humanize' the death penalty for apostasy.. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 1:40 am Post subject: Re: Texas: Palestinian Children Gaoled For Being Stateless |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
Palestinian children are being gaoled in Texas, because they do not technically have a nationality, and therefore can not be deported back to their own country.
Children Without A Country
| Quote: |
In some ways Yassir's story is similar to one now being lived by three Texas families of Palestinian heritage. They are people without a country. From Palestine they have fled to the USA, sometimes through other countries. Immigration authorities have denied them asylum, ordered them deported, and they are being jailed indefinitely in legal purgatory while some country is found to take them.
But the Texas families are not stowaways. They entered the USA with visas and have always lived public lives in their pursuit of asylum in the USA, growing their opportunities and their families along the way. The Ibrahim family, for example, arrived with four children, gave birth to a fifth, and are expecting a sixth. For the Ibrahim children who have lived in Palestine, memories are not so good, and they fear going back to a place where they are subject to so many military assaults.
Maryam Ibrahim was about two years old in 2000 when a gas canister crashed into her Palestinian home, rendering her unconscious for lack of breath. Pleading to USA authorities for asylum in 2002, Maryam's father Salaheddin testified that his little girl was fearful of people in uniform. Yet USA authorities have denied asylum and placed Maryam in jail where family members say she is not allowed to run indoors or go outdoors, and where every night at 10 p.m. she is ordered into a cell separate from where her pregnant mother is being kept. Frequently, Maryam cries. Maryam shares the overnight cell with older sister Rodaina, while younger sister Faten shares a cell with mother Hanan. Family members confirm reports that Hanan is not getting medical attention for her pregnancy, placing Maryam's little brother-to-be at risk. |
This is really quite horrible. Children should not be in gaol. It's been shown to have serious consequences for their mental health. Nor should an unborn child be put in a situation where its mother is not receiving proper prenatal care. Isn't this happening in a country that is so obsessed with the rights of the unborn child?
It would be wonderful if there was a big enough outcry about it for this practice to be stopped. Unfortunately though, without the existence of a US equivalent of Steve McGarrette's favourite news outlet, The Guardian, it's not likely that the US public will get to hear much about it:
| Quote: |
Despite a near blackout from corporate media--who will often report about Hutto protest actions without mentioning the Palestinians--these three Texas families are attracting supporters, activists, and attorneys from near and far.
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I believe that in Australia (after a number of years, unfortunately) the Howard government was finally forced to stop placing the children of asylum seekers in detention camps. Sadly though this has still given rise to situations like this, where children are seperated from their families:
| Quote: |
| As a result of treatyless impunity, children from all three families continue to suffer. Zahra Ibrahim, the fifth child mentioned above--and a USA citizen--has been prevented from seeing her pregnant mother since the two were separated upon arrest in early November. |
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Wow. You managed to fit quite a bit of leftist garbage in there.
They moved to the USA. They are in immigration limbo. The Guardian is only reporting this problem because it is muslims in America. All over the world there are similar situations similar to this, and much much much worse that they wouldn't report because it doesn't fit their pet obsessions. The paper is trash. Called David Duke an "American academic". Nice. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:26 am Post subject: |
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| dulouz wrote: |
| We don't have "gaols" in the US, esp in Texas. I'm not certain what the article is about. |
I hope you are not being serious because you could have looked up the word "gaol". It is a British way of writing jail. Basically, many Palestinians have no citizenship whatsoever because they are an occupied people. They can have Israeli citizenship if they are part of what is recognized as the state of Israel and are the people that remained under their control from the 1948-1967 and are the descendants of that group.
These people are from the occupied West Bank which Israel annexed but the world doesn't recognize the annexation. These people applied for political asylum and they weren't simply rejected; they were also placed in jail. I believe that is what this is about. There are other people of other nationalities who end up in a similar situation and not just stateless Palestinians. I think that many Palestinians in the West Bank have some kind of documentation indicating they are from there, but Israel has the final say in terms of whether they will let them back in.
In Canada, there were some Palestinian Christians who were threatened with deportation. They had no citizenship. A Catholic Church was refusing to give them up and all kinds of people were arguing for them from your run of the mill Canadian, humanitarians, Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian Christians and other Arabs. Eventually, the Canadian government backed off. These people were in bad shape and several of them had medical conditions. I am glad they found a home in Canada. |
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W.T.Carl
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 1:15 pm Post subject: |
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| If they are there illegally, they should be locked up. If you ae teaching illegally in the ROK ( or anywhere else) YOU SHOULD BE DEPORTED. If Canada wants them, they can have them. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 1:20 pm Post subject: ... |
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| Why not locked up? |
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tomato
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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BJWD, what is the major premise of your argument?
That two wrongs make a right? |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:37 pm Post subject: |
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If the article is actually correct then there appears to be a gross violation of those peoples' human rights. Many people apply for political asylum, but you don't jail political asylum applicants. A pregnant woman and a little girl in jail is excessively harsh. These are not like the Mexicans who come across who have a country. These people are stateless. Canada has I believe deported some stateless Palestinians but doing so can be tricky. I knew of a fellow whose mother was Egyptian and his father was
Palestinian. He had the so-called Egyptian travel document that Palestinians who fled Palestine 1948 received and is often called a laissez passer. The Egyptians all of a sudden refused him entry; he asked for asylum in Canada as a result. I don't remember what happened. However, stateless people are in precarious position because they have no citizenship. I heard there are Hindu refugees in Bhutan who had a similar problem and they had no citizenship. |
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