A London surgeon who has provided testimony over the current war in Gaza after operating during the conflict has been denied entry to France, where he was due to speak in the French senate later on Saturday.
After arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport north of Paris on Saturday morning on a flight from London, Prof Ghassan Abu-Sitta, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, was informed by French authorities that Germany had enforced a Schengen-wide ban on his entry to Europe.
French police said the German authorities, who had previously refused Abu-Sitta entry to Germany in April, had put a visa ban on him for a year, meaning he was banned from entering any Schengen country. It is not clear whether Abu-Sitta was aware of this before flying to Paris.
“They are preventing me from entering France. I am supposed to speak at the French senate today,” said Abu-Sitta, who had been invited by Green party parliamentarians to take part in a conference at the Sénat, the upper house, to speak about Gaza. The theme of the conference was: France and its responsibility in the application of international law in Gaza.
Something’s a bit iffy with this story. Surely, Germany would have made clear the particulars of the ban to Abu-Sitta. If this is the case, is this just a consciousness raising stunt on by Abu-Sitta? If he did know there are ways around the ban. Could it be that he isn’t Schengen banned at all and France is using it as a pretext.
Well I suspect he thought that France might waive the ban because the Senate had invited him specifically. I imagine the police will be getting an angry phone call from a senator.
Because it was unclear to the writer whether Abu-Sitta was aware doesn’t affect whether it was unclear to Abu-Sitta.
On what do you base this wonderful faith in governments to clearly explain their bureaucracies?
So what if it was? This is framed like the story is about whether governments explain themselves well and if he knew about his EU-wide ban this story would be unfounded and manipulative, but whether Germany explained its actions well enough is not the issue, it’s that a country banned someone for speech and then extended that ban to most of a continent.
He was not banned to block free speech. He was banned for breaking the law in Germany. If he hadn’t broken the law, he could go where he wants.
This is a blatant political/publicity stunt.