I'm currently traveling so I'll just post a short answer and let someone else from the local team carry this on:

The short answer is that apart from one guy from the Gaza strip who was in contact with us, and for whom we bended over backwards to try to find creative solutions to bring him to Israel, and later (rather quickly) just disappeared off our radars, we have not a single case we can report of anyone from the Middle East wanting to come to Wikimania but being prevented by Israel from doing so. There were some bogus applications like any Wikimania has, nothing that looks like a real participant wanting to join.

BTW all of these discussions were already held in other guises on this list and on wikimania-planning-l and foundation-l in the last summer and autumn - just search the archives :)


Harel Cain
Wikimania 2011 local team


On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 20:51, Kim Bruning <kim@bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote:
Hello,

BDS is telling people that certain people (gaza, west bank) are being excluded or likely to be excluded from wikimania [1]

I'm pretty sure that's not going to be entirely true. I'd like to tell these BDS
people off for spreading FUD.

Even so, I'd better be sure I'm telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
;-)

Is there anyone who currently wants to come to wikimania, but definitely won't be able
to come due to issues with permit/visa?

sincerely,
       Kim Bruning

[1]
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/economy-of-the-occupation/3439-bds-action-tell-wikimedia-not-to-hold-2011-annual-conference-in-israel-

--
[Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment]
gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key  FEF9DD72
5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72

_______________________________________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l



--
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.