EXCLUSIVE PICTURES
Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank is preparing to conduct student union elections in which all groups are expected to participate except the Islamic movements, namely the student wing of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Jama’at al Islamiyah.
Campaigning posters have been spread around the campus, even though the results are predictable in the absence of the Islamic factions.
The Islamic movements have withdrawn from the elections because of the prevailing political conditions in the West Bank and on-going harassment of their members at the hands of the Palestinian Authority’s police and security agencies. Members of the movements maintain they have been the targets of a systematic campaign of political detentions, intimidation and threats.
It is expected that the youth wing of Fateh would win the elections in the absence of the Islamic movements.
MEMO Photographer: Ibtehal Mansour