Clive Jones, the Liberal Democrat MP for Wokingham, has condemned the deportation of his neighbouring Labour MP Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed MP who have been denied entry and deported from Israel.
Yuan Yang, MP for Earley and Woodley, was joined by Abtisam Mohamed, MP for Sheffield Central, and a number of aides when she flew into Ben Gurion airport in Israel.
She formed part of a delegation which aimed to visit humanitarian projects in the West Bank alongside charity partners.
They were due to return yesterday (Sunday, April 6), but were detained by Israeli authorities on the grounds that they were suspected to be planning to “document activities of security forces” and “spread anti-Israeli hatred”, a statement from the Israeli immigration ministry confirmed.
Other Israeli officials have said that there was no evidence found to support the claim, however.
Commenting on the news, Clive Jones, the MP for Wokingham, said:”It is utterly wrong for Israel to have denied UK MPs entry to the country. Authoritarian states have sanctioned MPs for exercising their free speech, so this is a very worrying move from a democratic nation. The Liberal Democrats are calling for the Foreign Secretary to summon the Israeli Ambassador to explain exactly how this happened.
“There are many different views in the House of Commons on the Israel/Gaza conflict, but I had hoped that British Parliamentarians might be united in their belief that the Israeli Government’s decision to deny entry to Israel to two British MPs is wrong. I am disappointed, but not surprised, by comments made by the leader of the Conservatives this morning. Kemi Badenoch has once again shown unbelievably poor judgement by failing to back two British MPs denied entry to Israel.”
Elsewhere, Sue Sibany-King, spokesperson for the East Berkshire Palestine Solidarity Campaign said, “Yuan Yang is one of the British MPs who has spoken out against Israeli plans to evict Palestinians from Gaza and replace them with Israeli settlers.
“She did well to try to go there and see for herself.
“Now she knows that the Israeli authorities do not want the world to know what they are up to.”
