The Story Israel Will Not Erase: Gaza From Within - Journalist’s Journey as Colleagues Are Killed
My Opinion with TRT ESPAÑOL @trt_espanol
https://t.co/2M6mz0QOtx
Refaat Alareer deserved better. I’ve tried to make sense of his absence, but there’s nothing to find. No meaning, no solace. Just the cruel fact that life continues on, and none of us even has the luxury to pause and grieve.
Swiss security official who jailed and smeared @AliAbunimah is a fanatical pro-Israel activist
Mario Fehr, who has boasted of banning Palestine solidarity demos, may have relied on bogus accusations by a Zionist lobby group to order Abunimah's detention https://t.co/VnvrVI8i8s
I’m free! I wrote this on the plane and I’m posting it just after landing at Istanbul. On Monday evening I was brought to Zurich airport in handcuffs, in a small metal cage inside a windowless prison van and led all the way to the plane by police. This is after three days and two nights in a Swiss prison cut off from communication with the outside world, in a cell 24 hours a day with one cell mate, not even permitted to contact my family. On Saturday in a police interview in the presence of my lawyer they accused me of “offending against Swiss law” without ever telling me what crime I had committed in Switzerland or listing any charges. As far as I know I have not been charged with any crime whatsoever and I was held in “administrative detention.” On Sunday morning, they took me from my cell for questioning by Swiss defense ministry intelligence agents without the presence of my lawyer, and they again refused to allow me to contact her or my family. I refused to talk to them without my lawyer and told them take me back to my cell. During my imprisonment I refused every meal and every cup of coffee or tea they offered me except the last meal, after I knew I would be going home. I accepted only water, which is the right of every human being. All of this was after I was abducted off the street around 1:30pm on Saturday while on my way to the Palestine teach-in by undercover agents, handcuffed, forced into an unmarked car and sped straight to the prison. My “crime”? Being a journalist who speaks up for Palestine and against Israel’s genocide and settler-colonial savagery and those who aid and abet it. I came to Switzerland at the invitation of Swiss citizens to talk about justice for Palestine, to talk about accountability for a genocide in which Switzerland too is complicit. But while I was hauled off to prison like a dangerous criminal before I even had a chance to say a word, the Israeli president Isaac Herzog, who declared at the start of the genocide that there are no civilians in Gaza, no innocents, received a red carpet welcome in Davos, a carpet soaked in the blood of the more than 47,000 known victims of the genocide and the thousands more still under the rubble, or who died of deliberately inflicted starvation and denial of medical care. And on this very day Netanyahu freely travels to Poland to make a mockery of the Auschwitz commemoration despite an outstanding ICC arrest warrant. That is the perverse, unjust world we live in. This ordeal lasted three days but that taste of prison was more than enough to leave me in even greater awe of the Palestinian heroes who endure months and years in the prisons of the genocidal oppressor. More than ever I know that the debt we owe them is one we can never repay and all of them must be free and they must remain our focus. The police gave me my phone back only at the gate of the plane so I’m only seeing now the extent of the overwhelming support and solidarity from all over the world. I’m deeply grateful to each and every person who stood up for me. I’m especially grateful to my lawyer Dina Raewel and her team, to our friends in Zurich who I learned afterwards demonstrated outside the prison, to my family and my colleagues at EI and so many others. I honestly had no idea what was happening outside that concrete room! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I want to tell the whole story of what happened, perhaps in an @intifada livestream in the next day or two, because I think it’s important for people to know the depths to which their Western so-called “democracies” have sunk in the abject service of genocidal Zionism. Right now I’m glad to be on my way home. I’m looking forward to hugging my mom and dad, taking a shower and sleeping in my own bed. Journalism is not a crime! Speaking out for Palestine is not a crime! Standing against racist genocidal Zionism is not a crime! Say it with me:
From the River to the Sea Palestine Will Be Free! ❤️🇵🇸✌️
I really appreciated this beautiful eulogy by @ABDALLAH002000 in @intifada about his friend, Hassan Abu Sharekh. A friend dying creates a type of grief most societies don't know how to publicly mourn. I feel for those losing their friends in genocide. https://t.co/yvphftaSNM
Tis is outrageous!
The hypocrisy and double standards of the Western governments have reached a disgusting level.
I hope that @AliAbunimah is now safe and in good health.
The Electronic Intifada's executive director @AliAbunimah was deported by Switzerland on Monday after spending two nights in jail. https://t.co/Mg4gJC6wc0
"I called Hassan twice but he didn’t pick up. I didn’t worry, figuring that he had forgotten to charge his phone ... I later found out that Hassan was critically injured by Israeli bullets around the same time I was trying to call him." https://t.co/FjqZ0C8SQq #eiGazaDispatches
Hassan Abu Sharekh, a brilliant and beloved young teacher in Gaza, was killed by Israeli fire in Gaza three days after the ceasefire began. @ABDALLAH002000 pays tribute to his wise and caring friend https://t.co/QBm2njyqfe
A tribute to my beloved friend Hassan Abu Sharekh, who was killed by Israeli fire after the Ceasefire.
Please read and share his story
https://t.co/mbun50A5fL
The Electronic Intifada team stands in solidarity with @AliAbunimah. Speaking out against injustice in Palestine is not a crime. Journalism is not a crime. https://t.co/qxIjWgofZo
Counting the hours, minutes, and seconds.
I can't describe how I exactly feel right now. I'm happy and excited and sad and worried all at the same time.