The Police released this Sunday the Palestinian-Israeli activist and journalist Abed Abú Shehadé, who had been detained for five days after returning from Qatar, a country where he had conducted an interview with the former lawmaker of the Balad party, Azmi Bishara, accused of collaborating with the Lebanese party-militia Hezbollah.
The Center for the Rights of the Arab Minority in Israel, Adalah, has denounced that "he has been interrogated mainly about the published interview, which is publicly available" and criticized the "illegality" of the detention, as well as the "criminalization of Palestinian political expression."
For Adalah, "opening a criminal investigation over a press interview is a serious violation of freedom of the press. His detention has been arbitrary from the very first moment," and it censures that the court refused to revoke the arrest order. "The message to Palestinian citizens is unequivocal: a public conversation with a politician can take you to the cell. It is political persecution with a criminal law," the organization has emphasized.
The Tel Aviv Magistrates’ Court had authorized keeping Abú Shahadé in custody until this Sunday, after his arrest during a night raid at his home last Wednesday. Finally, the authorities have not asked to extend the detention again.
Abú Shahadé hosts a podcast on the Arab48 news website and previously was a council member and member of the Islamic Council of Jaffa, together with Tel Aviv, as a representative of the communist binational party Hadash and of the Palestinian nationalist formation Balad.