Honorary Vice-President
Khaled AlMudallal
Khaled has been allowed to return to the UK to continue with his studies. He arrived at Heathrow airport 12.30pm Tuesday 4th December. We consider this as great victory for the right to education campaign.
The student body recently elected Khaled AlMudallal to be the Honorary Vice President of the LSE Students Union. The following is his statement.
Dear All,
This is me Khaled AlMudallal, I am 22 years old; I was born in Rafah refugee camp in Palestine. The life in the camp was extremely difficult. We had to live under difficult conditions due to the shortage of basic life needs that was imposed by Israel (occupier).
Throughout my life and studies in Palestine I went through difficult times because of the continuous Israeli restrictions on my people in the Gaza Strip and widespread violations of our basic rights. While I was a kid I used to witness the Israeli army breaking into our homes in the camps and killing civilians. These scenes were so terrifying to me, which eventually left a bad and frightening image.
While I was 16 I visited the United Kingdom for the first time in my life to see my Dad who was studying for a PhD at Bradford university. I then decided to continue my education in the City of Bradford. I went to Grange College till I completed my GCSE's and A-Levels then I joined Bradford School of Management to do Business and Management studies. I lived in the UK by myself after that.
In June 2007 I decided to visit my family and my wife (Duaa) and return quickly to the UK. Since then I was trapped in Gaza after Israel decided to close the Rafah crossing border, which is the only border for the Gazans, turning Gaza into the worlds largest prison.
Since the closure of the border I have contacted many official bodies in Palestine and Israel, to claim back my freedom of movement, but without any response, then I turned to the media to tell them about my case!
I am asking you to: To campaign with me in order to get my basic right of movement and education back, I ask all my friends in the UK to campaign against these unjust policies against me and hundreds of other Palestinian students in Gaza Strip. I ask the Prime Minster of the United Kingdom to urgently contact the Israeli government to stop immediately the warfare against the Palestinians in Gaza Strip.
Many thanks to the Students at the London School of Economics for electing me as Honorary Vice-President (of the LSESU) for their union's election. I'll do my best to help the students of the School and I am happy to receive any enquiries.
Khaled AlMudallal