IOA decided to exile MP Abu Tair from Jerusalem

[ 21/05/2010 - 09:59 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation authority has decided Thursday  to exile Palestinian Jerusalemite lawmaker MP Mohammed Abu Tair from the occupied city forever,  just hours after they released him from jail where he was arbitrarily detained for 43 months. The decision of exiling Abu Tair was handed over to him after he was summoned by the IOA authorities in the occupied Palestinian city and gave him one month to back up his things and move out of the city where he was born. PIC correspondent in the city said that the IOA told Abu Tair that he should select either the West Bank or Gaza Strip to live, and decided to deny him all his legal rights alleging he possesses no residence permit in the city. Abu Tair, for his part, rejected the decision and described it as part of the Israeli policy of extortion and repressive measures against Palestinian Jerusalemites, underlining that his family's roots in the city stretched to more than 500 years, and that no law in this world could deny him or his family the right to dwell in the city. "You, specifically, has no place in Jerusalem, and we will kick you out of it", Abu Tair quoted the chief of the Israeli occupation police in the city as saying to him after he handed him the order. Relatives of Abu Tair said he survived an attack by Jewish settlers while on his way to the police station that summoned him. Earlier, the IOA rendered similar decision against former Palestinian minister for Jerusalem affairs Khalid Abu Arafa who was also jailed with Abu Tair for nearly four years. However, lawmakers from the change and reform bloc in the Palestinian legislature described the decision as "arbitrary and void" that aims at emptying the occupied city from its real owners. The lawmakers underscored that the Israeli schemes would fail in the face of the exemplary steadfastness and resoluteness of the Palestinian people. They also deprecated the indifferent stand of the Ramallah-based PA regarding the Israeli decision, urging all concerned human rights and legal institutions to block the decision and to pressure the Israeli occupation into respecting Palestinian legitimate rights.