July 12, 02

Dear friends,

Another story from Jerusalem on the democracy of Israeli governement

AbdelLatif Jameel Ahmad, a palestinian with a jordanian citizinship, married to Ola Abu-Sway from Jerusalem since 4 years and a half. As all Palestinians who are not from Jerusalem and who marry another from Jerusalem or Israel, they present a demand for a family union inorder to have a permit and eventually an ID card to be able to live in Jerusalem. (This is my case as well). However, AbdelLatif, came to Palestine with the return of Palestinian authority.

Those who know the ministry of interior in East Jerusalem, know how much is the suffering to have a date. Some Palestinians sleep the night to reserve a place and have the possibility to enter and obtain a certificate of birth, a laissé passé, or an ID card among other things.

Any way, the lawyer was finally able to obtain a rendez-vous for AbdelLatif, and the Israeli ministry of anterior have given the couple a date to meet, so that they finish all the arrangements for the papers. They have done previously all the meetings, all the interrogations and all the things necessary with the lawyers, so it was sure that his situation was clean, and no problem to give him the papers.

So the couple enter the office, and then, they ask them to return on the second day with the passport and some other papers as everything is OK. They return the second day, as required. The Israeli employer, take his passport, and say to his wife you have 2 hours to bring him some clothes because he will be expelled to Jordan.

Ola contacts her brother who calls the lawyer and tell him the story. The lawyer went to the office in the ministry of interior, and tried to find a solution… Nothing… To be liberated on caution, nothing… So he made a case to the court. After many trials, and negotiations, nothing. He will be expelled to Jordan any way.

He is there since five weeks now, in prison. The Jordanians do not accept to receive him. He is not liberated, and he is still waiting for a solution. More than one hundred persons are in the same case in the prison where he is. Some of them have been there for 9 months now, and the countries they came from are not willing to receive them. Some of the families are trying now to beg that they are to be expelled rather than to stay in prison like this.

Another face for the democracy of Israel… They make us pay for taxes, and theyu take the money, but no services in exchange…