Student who said 7 October left her ‘full of joy’ wins human rights visa appeal
Tribunal finds in favour of Dana Abu Qamar who called the Hamas attack "a once in a lifetime experience" that left her "full of pride"
A Palestinian student who celebrated the 7 October Hamas attacks in a television interview has won her appeal against a Home Office decision to revoke her visa.
Dana Abu Qamar, a 20-year-old law student and president of the Friends of Palestine Society at the University of Manchester, had her student visa revoked on 1 December 2023.
It followed her speech at a university demonstration one day after the attacks that saw 1,200 massacred and 250 taken captive in Gaza. In a subsequent live interview with Sky News, she called the slaughter “a once in a lifetime experience” and said “we are full of pride”.
According to The Guardian, the tribunal found that the Home Office failed to “demonstrate that the presence of Dana Abu Qamar” was not “conducive to public good” and its initial decision was a “disproportionate interference with her protected right to free speech” under the European Convention on Human Rights.
It also found that her statements could not be taken as support for Hamas or the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October.
Abu Qamar has claimed she was misinterpreted and not speaking in support of the Hamas terror group. A Jordanian-Canadian citizen of Palestinian origin, she says 15 members of her family were killed in Gaza, “murdered in an Israeli airstrike that targeted their residential building”.
Following the Sky News interview, the University of Manchester issued an email to staff describing Abu Qamar as being in “considerable distress about the misinterpretation of their views”. It added that staff were “supporting them through this difficult time.”
Following the revoking of her visa, after which she said she was “distraught”, she told Qatar funded news outlet Middle East Eye: “I came here to the UK to receive an education and as a resident I thought I would receive equal rights here in the UK in terms of my human rights to freely express myself and stand in solidarity with those who are oppressed in Gaza and beyond.
“But it came to me as a shocking realisation that, no, there is systemic discrimination here in the UK and this country that takes pride in itself for being a beacon of human rights, for being a beacon of democracy, does not act in that manner towards ethnic minorities and towards people of colour like myself.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism has called the tribunal decision “a complete mockery of our visa system.”
Jewish News has approached Manchester University for comment.
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