Palestinian student denied Swedish citizenship over Gaza activism

A Palestinian student in Sweden is being denied citizenship due to her activism on campus, the latest case of pro-Palestine advocates being targeted in Western and European nations.

Soon after Israel launched its war on Gaza, Isra Barham and a group of students at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg started a campaign to express solidarity with Palestine.

They set up social media accounts under the name Chalmers Social Justice and started with walkouts, candlelit vigils and discussion groups, all aimed at raising awareness about what Palestinians were facing at the hands of the Israeli military.

The campaign gained momentum and led to nearly 150 people signing a petition demanding that the university sever its ties with Israeli companies and institutions, and do more to support its Palestinian students, Barham told Anadolu.

Among the Israeli firms linked to the university are Elbit Systems, a major defence contractor, and the students successfully cancelled a speaking engagement with an Elbit representative last year.

The Chalmers University management responded to the petition by imposing a ban on political activities at the university.

“They actually banned all political manifestation at the university,” said Barham, 33, an architecture postgraduate student.

“This was the first and only university in Sweden that banned political manifestation, although it’s actually in a democratic country where you are allowed to actually protest.”

Denying Swedish citizenship

The ban was short-lived as protests by students, faculty and staff forced the management to backtrack, but it was an indicator of what lay in store for Barham.

The university reported Barham and her fellow activists to the police for a demonstration they organised on campus on December 5.

“They couldn’t find anything to report, but still they wanted to report something, and the only name they had was my name,” said Barham, a Palestinian and Romanian citizen who has lived and worked in Sweden since 2010.

Videos of the event in question show it was completely peaceful, with students, including Barham, kicking it off in the cafeteria with a rendition of Leve Palestina, the 1979 song by Swedish-Palestinian singer George Totari that has become a global antiwar anthem.

That was followed by a discussion at another campus location, during which they distributed coffee and cookies to the participants. Despite the peaceful nature of the event, the management reported them to the police for using a university space for such activities.

Four months later, the Swedish Migration Agency announced that Barham’s citizenship application, pending for two years, had been rejected.

The reason cited in the official correspondence was that Barham did not fulfill the requirement for an “honest way of life,” a provision in Sweden’s tightened immigration laws, because she is “suspected of a violation of th e public order law that occurred on December 5, 2023.”

“The police report was used to deny my citizenship despite the fact that the case was closed and there was no crime,” said Barham.

“The university knows about that. I talked to them as soon as I knew that this was the reason that they were denying me Swedish citizenship, and they said that they had nothing to do with it and that I should be solving this on my own.”

Barham’s appeal against the rejection was also declined, leaving her facing an uncertain future.

She criticised the “problematic” recent changes to Swedish law that allow police reports to affect a person’s immigration status.

Double standards

“It creates a system where anyone can be targeted, impacting their ability to stay in the country,” she said.

At Chalmers University, there have been “consequences” for any form of activism or pro-Palestine advocacy, according to Braham.

“Even if it’s just showing a movie, or just giving out coffee to students and trying to engage in a conversation about Palestine and Israel. There are always consequences,” she said.

Braham also called out the university administration for its double standards regarding Israel’s war on Gaza and the Ukraine conflict.

“My university was the first to speak about Ukraine and do something about it and show their support,” she said, lamenting the silence and repression on the Israeli war on Gaza.

Anadolu reached out to Chalmers University for a comment but did not receive a response.

Despite all her personal difficulties, Braham remains committed to her advocacy for the Palestinian cause and aims to complete her thesis on Palestine.