Dana Abuqamar, a 19-year-old Palestinian student living in the UK, is pursuing her dream of becoming a lawyer at Manchester University. Her life fell apart when the Home Office labelled her a “national threat to security.”
Dana was attending a peaceful pro-Palestinian protest on October 8, 2023, when she participated in a TV interview, expressing pride in her country’s resistance against the ongoing illegal siege by Israel.
“I was just expressing support for Palestinians coming out of an open-air prison or rather a concentration camp”
By the end of April, Dana received a notification from the UK Home Office expressing its intent to revoke her visa.
During the interview, Dana spoke about the protest’s aims and objectives, explaining to The New Arab, “I was just expressing support for Palestinians coming out of an open-air prison or rather a concentration camp.”
Dana was shocked by the extreme and “baseless” accusation against her. Reflecting on the TV interview, she said, “When the journalist started asking me about Hamas, I was taken aback because the protest was not even about Hamas; it was about support for Palestinian resistance against Israel’s illegal siege.”
Her legal team is optimistic about her case, identifying the Home Office’s claim as “a blatant attack on human rights.”
The knock-on-effect
Initially, the University of Manchester stopped Dana from continuing her studies while in her final year. After she launched her appeal, the university was compelled to revert its decision and allowed her to resume her degree. Meanwhile, legal teams continue to gather evidence in the lead-up to her appeal hearing.
For Dana, the primary issues with the Home Office’s decision are the severe consequences for her immigration record and the permanent damage to her name and professional integrity.
She highlighted to The New Arab how the smear campaign against her has affected how mainstream media have portrayed her, noting, “My name has been dragged through the mud.” Dana stated, “What underpins my case is discrimination and the process of cutting off someone’s right to advocate for social justice.”
“It’s turned into a witch hunt by the government; they have been censoring Palestinians and their advocates”
The prejudice she is facing goes beyond the authorities. “Discrimination, implicit bias, and prejudice run through everyone, therefore, it was easy for them to think of me as someone who would condone the killing of civilians,” she explained.
The prejudice she is facing goes beyond the authorities, Dana explained. “Discrimination, implicit bias, and prejudice run through everyone, therefore, it was easy for them to think of me as someone who would condone the killing of civilians,” she stated.
Cases like Dana’s have been making headlines since the uprising of the pro-Palestinian protests. “It’s turned into a witch hunt by the government; they have been censoring Palestinians and their advocates,” she explained, adding this feeds into “foreign policy blindly supporting Israel, no matter what it does.”
Fighting her corner
On top of dealing with the smear campaign and fighting to finish her law degree, Dana has been grieving the 15 family members she lost during an Israeli airstrike in Gaza last October.
“Half of the family members I lost were children, with some as young as eight,” she added with a heaviness in her voice.
“Everyone who knows me as a person has been extremely supportive,” Dana said, adding they did not even doubt her views once. “They know who I am and that I am trying to be an asset to the community in every sense of the word, and they know what I said was right and was consistent with international law and human rights.”
Multiple professors have backed Dana, detailing to The New Arab that they have written statements pleading with the Home Office to reconsider. One of the professors, who is Jewish, had seen Dana defend the rights of Israeli civilians in a university debate.
Best case scenario
The law student indicated that this case represents more than her human rights. “I am not just defending my rights as an individual to speak and express myself freely, but also on a larger scale, I am supporting every person of an ethnic minority in exercising their human rights.”
Typically, foreign students are allowed to remain in the UK for a few years after graduation to work. However, Dana said, “After all I have been through, I have lost hope in the justice system in the UK. After seeing what the UK is really like, I have no interest in staying; all I want is a clean immigration record.”
Olivia Hooper is a British journalist based in Morocco specialising in humanitarian and gender-based topics. She also works as co-lead of communications and marketing at Politics4Her