On 23 August, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) Jonas Sj\u00f6stedt and Hanna Gedin were denied entry into Israel while preparing to travel to the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. <\/p>\n
Their itinerary included meetings with Save the Children, visits to refugee camps, and discussions with both Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations to gather testimonies regarding the deteriorating conditions in the region.<\/p>\n
Despite holding valid entry permits and receiving supporting documentation from the European Parliament and the Swedish Embassy, the MEPs were prevented from boarding their flight departing from Athens. This incident raises concerns regarding the treatment of EU representatives, particularly as Israeli politicians continue to travel freely within Europe. <\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael is increasingly preventing people from entering the country, even members of parliament. We were barred for political reasons because we criticised Israel and demanded that Israeli ministers be brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC),\u201d commented MEP Jonas Sj\u00f6stedt.<\/p>\n
The Left has communicated this incident to the office of the President of the European Parliament in light of the ongoing situation in Palestine. Furthermore, it has been brought to attention that the European Commission is currently engaged in negotiations related to the sharing of biometric and personal data with Israeli security services.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is unacceptable that a country that still has relations and trade agreements with the EU denies elected officials the opportunity to see with their own eyes what is happening and to meet with those experiencing the situation on the ground,\u201d says Hanna Gedin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On 23 August, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) Jonas Sj\u00f6stedt and Hanna Gedin were denied entry into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[28918,12950,4781,9285,72205,1722,37,72206,498,9253,1677,40301,72207],"class_list":["post-262436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-ethnic-cleansing","tag-european-commission","tag-european-parliament","tag-gaza-genocide","tag-hanna-gedin","tag-human-rights","tag-israel","tag-jonas-sjostedt","tag-palestine","tag-refugee-camps","tag-save-the-children","tag-the-left","tag-vansterpartiet"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117150305106598538","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}