Israelis barred from leaving Romania

Rally outside Romanian embassy: Allow Israeli doctors to leave country

Protestors say Bucharest authorities preventing Professor Levitt, Dr. Ziskind from leaving Romania despite not being charged in human egg-trafficking case. 'My mother is a very strong woman, but this affair is taking its toll on her,' Ziskind's daughter says

Some 150 people held a rally outside the Romanian Embassy in Tel Aviv on Tuesday and called on authorities in Bucharest to permit two Israeli physicians who were arrested in Bucharest 29 days for their alleged involvement in the human egg-trafficking case to leave the country.

Professor Nathan Levitt and Dr. Genya Ziskind were released in late July, but they are still forbidden from leaving Romania.

Ziskind's daughter Tamar said her mother "is a very strong woman, but this affair is taking its toll on her. My older brother is getting married in two weeks, and this has put her under even more pressure.

Levitt's daughter Chen, who also took part in the demonstration, said the Israeli public is rallying around the family. "When word of the affair first got out, there was a sense that the public was unjustifiably hostile towards (the doctors)," she said.

"We are trying to gain public support and protest the judicial foot-dragging in Romania. For the past 29 days people have been held (in Romania) without being indicted. They (authorities) have no proof, so why not release them? They can always be sent back to Romania should the legal proceedings progress," she said.

Dr. Asher Goldshleger, head of the Union of Microbiologists, Biochemists and Laboratory Workers, called for a partial strike by the union to "wake the State of Israel up and make it understand that abandoning its citizens is the worst possible thing."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3763851,00.html

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