Palestinian man sues EU over dismissal from Gaza's Rafah border mission
A Palestinian man is taking the European Union (EU) to court over his dismissal from a border monitoring job at the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
According to media reports on Sunday, Mohammed Baraka, who worked at the EU’s Rafah border mission for nearly two decades, filed a discrimination claim in a Belgian court.
Baraka, who worked at the mission after its inception in 2006, had been evacuated to the Egyptian capital, Cairo, to continue his work after the Israeli genocidal war started against the besieged Palestinian territory.
But he was dismissed this year after the 27-member bloc decided to close the office in Rafah due to the brutal Israeli aggression.
In the claim submitted to a Brussels tribunal, his lawyer, Selma Benkhelifa, stated that Baraka “does not criticize the decision to close the Rafah office” as “the security situation justifies this.”
However, she argued that his EU counterparts, who also worked for EUBam in Rafah, “were not dismissed, they were transferred elsewhere” to continue work, giving alleged grounds for “discrimination on the basis of his nationality.”
The case also challenges the EU’s use of rolling one-year contracts, which the suit said breaches a Belgian law requiring permanent status after three consecutive contracts.
“A provision that allows an employer to renew fixed-term contracts is contrary to Belgian and European public policy,” the lawsuit says.
“It is shocking to note that a European institution is circumventing public policy provisions intended to protect workers. The applicant’s contract must be reclassified as a permanent contract,” the claim adds.
Baraka said he had “filed this case because of the injustice” he suffered.
“During the first days of the war in Gaza, I was, like all other residents of Gaza, facing an unknown and frightening fate,” he said.
“When I was offered evacuation by the EU to a safe place, as an EU employee who had served for 20 years, I accepted the offer. But had I known that my fate would be dismissal from my job and being left in a place with no residence or basic human rights, I would have never agreed to it. None of this was explained to me beforehand.”
Critics believe both the US and major European powers apply double standards towards different nations, especially the Palestinians.
The UK and the EU now face legal action over not evacuating even critically ill children from Gaza during the brutal Israeli aggression
Muslim civil society organizations have raised concerns over an increasing wave of government crackdowns on pro-Palestinian activism throughout Europe, citing violations of human rights and freedom of expression.
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