Student protests over Gaza visas
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Why did Trinity students chain themselves to the Department of Justice?
The Claire Burns Show on News Talk. With Aviva Insurance.
Now we go to news that students from the Trinity Students Union have chained themselves to the Department of Justice this morning in protest at visas being denied for students from Palestine. The 103 long-stay student visa applications received from Palestinian nationals have been refused by the Department of Justice. Amy Kennedy is the Trinity College Student Union President, and Amy is one of those who has chained themselves. To the railings and she joins me from there now. So, Amy, you are on the green there, uh chained to the Department of Justice right now.
Yes, yeah. We are currently here after being chained here for about seventeen hours now.
So w tell us why you've taken this action.
We have been trying all of the institutional routes for over a month now. We have been gathering students together from across the country.
How many protesters are present and what actions have they taken?
We have been liaising with people in political parties, with lawyers to try to get appeals submitted. And ultimately the Department of Justice has decided that students are not worth listening to. And therefore we've had to move to more drastic action to try to get these students into the country.
How many of you are there this morning?
There's currently about twenty of us here. Uh last night we were up to about forty at the peak. And there are more students coming by as the colleges are opening up again today.
And have you managed to speak to anybody at the Department of Justice? Has the minister been through?
We have not managed to speak to anybody from the Department of Justice. There's been no offer for meeting, no offer of discussion. Um, we are just still here trying to keep things shut down because there can be no business as usual when you're ruining the lives of this many people.
What specific visa deadlines are forcing the protest?
And what is it that you want the Department of Justice to do?
The situation is that the last evacuation scheduled is for the twenty-eighth of September. In order for students to be able to get on that flight, they need their visa eleven days in advance, which means that today is the last day they can get a visa to get on an evacuation flight. What we are asking the department to do is to prioritize these specific visa appeals and to accelerate them so that they can be approved by end of day so these students have an actual chance to come here.
Yeah, and these it's an extraordinary story because some of these students were actually invited by our third level institutions to come and and study here and all sorts of provisions were put in place for them. They some of them were living in in tented accommodation because they they couldn't be in their homes and they were making their applications in those really difficult circumstances and then they were turned down.
Yes, that's exactly the case. Um, there's a lot of these students who would have funding coming from universities or from private donors. Some of them actually had the university submit the visa applications for them and were assisted through the entire process by the universities themselves because the universities want these people here. They're academically talented people, they're people who have worked through unimaginable conditions to earn their places in our universities. And we all want them here. It's just the
Why does the Department of Justice claim students lack financial proof?
Department of Justice who are knocking them down at the last hurdle.
Now I I believe at the time when the refusal was made it was because the department felt that these individuals couldn't prove that they had the means to support themselves in Ireland or had a plan to return back when their studies were completed. Do you think that there is logic in that?
I don't think this is a normal Circumstance, а даю донтин. Firstly, I don't agree with that immigration policy to begin with, but I think in this specific circumstance, to claim that people do not have sufficient financial documentation when the banks they were banking with have been systematically destroyed by Israel, it's frankly absurd. You cannot expect people to provide banking documents when the institutions that would have released those banking documents no longer exist because they have been
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Why did Trinity students chain themselves to the Department of Justice?
0:01–1:00
2
How many protesters are present and what actions have they taken?
1:00–1:47
3
What specific visa deadlines are forcing the protest?
1:47–3:03
4
Why does the Department of Justice claim students lack financial proof?
3:03–4:15
5
How are universities and donors supporting the Palestinian students?
4:15–5:06
6
What would happen if the midday deadline passes without a decision?
5:06–6:07
7
What outcome does Amy Kennedy hope to achieve from the protest?
6:07–7:11