Visa cancelled for questioning Israeli lies. Help me return to the UK
Visa cancelled for questioning Israeli lies. Help me return to the UK
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Latest: March 10, 2025
Judge Denied Me Permission to Proceed - Need to Apply for Oral Reconsideration
Dear Supporters
Thank you for your continuing support. I am still very short on funds incurred so far and costs are escalating.
Unfortunately the first judge to consider my case has refused to grant me…
Read moreI am a Turkish citizen. The Home Office cancelled my visa for simply sharing a readily available document that questions Israeli atrocity propaganda about 7 October 2023.
I have a PhD in AI and robotics from a leading British university and had secured a Global Talent Visa having been identified as a leader in digital technology. I had been living in the UK with my wife and two young daughters for the past 4 years.
In January 2024, I shared a document on a Whatapp group chat entitled 'Our Narrative - Operation Al Aqsa Flood' which had been published by Hamas' media office and distributed to media outlets across the world. The document provides historic context prior to the attacks of 7 October 2023, denies allegations of atrocities against civilians while admitting ‘some faults’ in the implementation of the attacks, and calls for a transparent international investigation of both Hamas and Israel.
Direct links to the document can be found on Israeli media sites including Haaretz, the Times of Israel, and The Jerusalem Post as well as other international media outlets like Al Jazeera English, Anadolu Agency, Jordan News, and the UK-based The New Arab. The document is also included in the appendices of a book about Hamas published last year by Helena Cobban and Rami F. Khouri, which can be purchased on Amazon.
In April 2024, I was randomly selected for questioning at Stansted Airport on return from a holiday to Turkey. My phone was examined and I was asked about my religious and political views for 6 hours before being allowed to return home. I did not hear from the police again after that.
Many months later, while I was in Turkey on holiday, the Home Office wrote to me to tell me that they had cancelled my visa because I had shared the Hamas document on a Whatsapp group. My family also had their visas cancelled. After four years in the UK, we were suddenly stranded outside, away from our home, with no source of income, and facing the gravest of allegations.
This is clearly a move by the Home Office to suppress freedom of speech and ensure that the only version of events that remains in the public domain about the 7th of October is the Israeli one, complete with fairy tales about beheaded and baked babies. They are punishing me for daring to even share another version of the events of that day and use me as an example to scare others.
The Home Office said that by sharing the document, it was almost certain that I had committed a terrorism offence and that it was highly likely I was a Hamas supporter, had an extremist mindset, that I had shared the document to radicalise others, and that I pose a threat to national security.
If this was the case, then why did the police - who had examined my phone AND questioned me for 6 hours without a lawyer - not arrest me?
Why did the police not search my home?
Why did the police never come to question me again or even stop me at the airport on my way out to Turkey?
They are not even suggesting that there is other material they have that indicates I have done anything wrong, just a single share of one document.
I refuse to be scared.
I refuse to remain silent.
I have started a legal challenge against the cancellation of my visa and hope that a victory in my case will empower others who have been similarly affected to come forward.
I am looking to raise an initial £10,000 to cover my legal costs for this case for my solicitors, my barrister, the court fees and an expert witness.
Donations will go directly from the donor to my lawyers via Crowd Justice - none of the money will come to me.
If the money raised is more than I need for my case or I am successful and my lawyers recover their costs from the Home Office, the funds will be used to support legal challenges brought by individuals who have lost their job or had their visas cancelled on account of their support for Palestine via their CrowdJustice campaign, in accordance with the platform's 'unused funds' policy.
I am very grateful for any support you can give me to overturn this ludicrous decision and return with my family to the UK.
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I'll share on FacebookDr Mehmet Ali (real name concealed to protect my children)
March 10, 2025
Judge Denied Me Permission to Proceed - Need to Apply for Oral Reconsideration
Dear Supporters
Thank you for your continuing support. I am still very short on funds incurred so far and costs are escalating.
Unfortunately the first judge to consider my case has refused to grant me permission to proceed with the judicial review (see why below) based on the written legal arguments. My lawyers have submitted grounds for the application to be re-heard orally in court and we are now awaiting a listing.
Summary
In short, we say
1. The judge didn't consider that the Home Office did not take into account other relevant factors such as the widespread availability of the document and that Hamas was not a threat to national security.
2. The judge did not consider the Home Office failure to look at less intrusive alternatives when restricting free speech.
3. The judge did not consider the fact that the Home Office had not give me an opportunity to respond to the allegations before cancelling my visa.
Details
The judge essentially said that the Home Office was entitled to consider and attach weight to the assessment by BTAC (Borders, Terrorsim Assessment Centre). However, she failed to consider whether the Home Office had considered other relevant matters: the fact that the document I shared was widely available in mainstream international media, including Israeli media; the fact that Hamas is not a threat to national security in the UK; and the fact that much of the legislation referred to in the BTAC report is irrelevant.
The judge also failed to give any consideration to the need to consider less intrusive alternatives when restricting speech, even if those statements do “amount to statements of support, justification and indeed glorification of that terrorist violence”. This was the ruling in the very recent case of an NHS doctor who won her own judicial review against the cancellation of her visa for social media posts the judge said glorified the 7 October operation.
The judge also gave no consideration to a recent Court of Appeal case on deprivation of citizenship (Kolicaj) in which the Court ruled that before removign citizenship, people should be given the right to respond to the allegations againt them unless the Home Office could show this was impossible, impractical or pointless to afford such an opportunity.
Expert Evidence
The judge also refused to grant me permission to rely on the expert evidence of Dr Tristan Dunning.
This report provides evidence for the assertions made in mygrounds that
(1) the document “Aqsa Tufan” was widely available in mainstream Israeli and international media at the time
(2) that Hamas does not generally pose a threat to national security
Those are things that the Home Office should have considered before deciding to revoke my leave.
Conclusion
I am continuing to fight my case and take comfort in the fact that other professionals in a similar situation are succeeding in their own challenges. I am forever grateful for your support but need to appeal to you for more funds as the case progresses.
Thank you all again
Dr Mehmet Ali (real name concealed to protect my children)
Feb. 25, 2025
Media Coverage of my case in the Middle East Eye
Thank you all for your continuing support.
The case has now received some coverage in the media through the Middle East Eye. Please share the story widely among your contacts to demonstrate how rampant the suppression of free speech has become in the UK when it comes to the issue of Palestine.
As my solicitor commented to the MEE
"The government's suppression of free speech has reached a new low whereby brilliant scientists, professionals and academics are being treated as threats to national security for simply sharing a document that provides an alternative version of events to the racist and dehumanising atrocity propaganda that had become the official narrative about October 7."
Read the full story here.
I am forever grateful for your support and hope that you can help me see this through until the end with my return to the UK with my family.
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