The Chancellor of the University of Glasgow, Dr Ghassan Abu Sitah, who was due to address the French Senate today to describe his experience as a doctor in Gaza, was forced to return from Paris Roissy Airport to London without being able to enter the French territory due to the ban on his entry into the Schengen zone activated by Berlin.
“I am at Charles de Gaulle airport. They are preventing me from entering France. I am going to address the French Senate today,” he wrote to X. “They say the Germans have banned me from entering Europe for a year.”
A police source confirmed to AFP that a Schengen entry ban order had been issued by Germany and prevented him from entering Paris. Finally, he boarded a late afternoon flight to London, a police source said.
In mid-April, Berlin banned Gasan Abu Sitah from entering Germany, as well as Yannis Varoufakis. Both attended a “Palestinian Conference” in Berlin, which was interrupted by German police an hour after it began.
When asked about the issue of Yannis Varoufakis, the German authorities justified the ban on the grounds of “preventing any anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli propaganda”.
In a video posted the same day on X, Ghassan Abu Sitah said he was banned from entering Germany for “the whole of April”. He also denounced “the suppression of freedom of expression in Germany,” a country that is “an accomplice (of the Israeli army) in silencing witnesses to the genocide” in Gaza.
Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitah spent 43 days in Gaza providing medical services, mainly at al-Sifa Hospital. He was due to attend a banquet in the French Senate organized by environmentalist Senator Raymond Poncet Monz.
“Scandalous, @GhassanAbuSitt1 plastic surgeon with service in #Gaza prevented from attending @senate banquet,” Guillaume Godard, chairman of the Senate Environmental Caucus, wrote on X.
Symposium organizers reached out to the offices of French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin and Foreign Minister Stéphane Cezournet to no avail.
According to a French government source, if there is an entry ban signal in the Schengen information system from a member country for a person, he is not allowed to enter any Schengen country.
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