Israel plans to revoke citizenship of BDS founder
Occupied Palestine (QNN)- Israeli Interior Minister Arye Deri has ordered immigration authorities to look into revoking residency status from co-founder of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement BDS Omar Barghouti for “breach of trust,” Deri’s office announced Sunday.
“Tonight, I instructed the Population and Immigration Authority to prepare an opinion to cancel residency in Israel by Omar Barghouti, founder of the boycott movement on Israel,” Deri said on Twitter describing him as “a man who is doing everything to harm the state, and therefore shouldn’t enjoy the right of being a resident of Israel.”
The decision came after deputy attorney-general Dina Zilber said Mr Deri had the authority to revoke the activist’s citizenship.
Barghouti, a Qatari-born Palestinian who resides in the occupied city of Acre, and has a PhD in ethics from Tel Aviv University.
In recent years the occupation state has been fighting him over his political activity and support for the boycott. In 2017 Israeli authorities arrested him on suspicion of tax evasion, and in April he was denied entry into the United States. He was also denied a visa by the United Kingdom to attend a Labour party convention last month, which the Israeli Strategic Affairs Ministry’s chief executive called “a success.”
Barghouti also founded the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, a campaign launched by Palestinian activists in Ramallah in 2004, which is part of the BDS movement.
The movement calls for equality between Israelis and Palestinians.
To achieve this, activists believe that Israel should be pressured through boycotting and that the international community should condemn the country’s actions that breach human rights.
