After five months in an Israeli prison, Palestinian photojournalist Mustafa al-Kharouf faces deportation to Jordan, Al Jazeera reported.
The photojournalist has been living in Jerusalem since 1999. However, throughout that time, 32-year-old Kharouf has struggled to gain permanent residency in Palestine, despite his father’s citizenship status as a Palestinian and his wife’s as a Jerusalemite.
#Jerusalem – Mustafa Al Kharouf's wife, waiting for the decision of the Supreme Court: "His psychological situation is very bad and he refuses to wait anymore."https://t.co/X2U2zZbOiU
— RSF in English (@RSF_en) June 4, 2019
After arriving in Jerusalem over 12 years prior, his parents tried to meet all the requirements demanded by immigration policies in order to win “legal status” as Palestinians within the city. Yet still, their then-18-year-old son was refused residency papers. When Kharouf tried again in 2014 and 2016, he was again refused for “security reasons.”
Adi Lustigman, Kharouf’s attorney, said,
“He had an interim order during some periods, but the rest of the times he has just managed, like many other stateless and status-less Jerusalemites do.”
For the past five months, #MustafaAlKharouf has been languishing inside #Israel's Givon prison, away from his wife Tamam and their one-and-a-half-year-old daughter Asia, but now he faces deportation to #Jordan. https://t.co/z02MOLDhDc
— Francisco Taveira (@jftaveira1993) June 1, 2019
Amnesty International’s Jerusalem director, Saleh Hijazi, said,
“[Kharouf] must be released immediately and granted permanent residency in East Jerusalem so he can resume his normal life with his wife and child.”
Kharouf and Lustigman believe the rejection may be due to his work as a journalist, documenting human rights abuses.
#Israel is trying to deport a stateless journalist (Mustafa Al Kharouf), who spent the last 20 years living in occupied #Jerusalem, where he has a wife, daughter, and works as a photographer.
Caricature by Carlos Lattuf pic.twitter.com/vpamoBUt9p
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) March 3, 2019
Then, when Kharouf objected to the Israeli ministry’s decision, he was arrested and imprisoned. Now he faces deportation, however, dozens of international rights groups have jumped to his assistance, urging state authorities to grant him residency.
(TeleSur, PC, Social Media)
