[Pnews] Palestinian leader Raed Salah freed from Israeli prison after 17 months

[Prisoner News]

middleeasteye.net
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-raed-salah-freed-prison>
Palestinian
leader Raed Salah freed from Israeli prison after 17 months
By Lubna Masarwa in Occupied Jerusalem - December 13, 2021
------------------------------

Prominent Palestinian <https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel>
religious and political figure Sheikh Raed Salah was released from Israel's
Megiddo prison on Monday, after completing a 17-month sentence on
incitement charges. Salah spent all of his sentence in solitary confinement.

Salah’s lawyers in September appealed for his release, arguing to the court
that the detention has caused him physical and psychological harm.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestinian-sheikh-raed-salah-prison-israel-jerusalem-al-aqsa-interview>

Sheikh Raed Salah: 'I head to prison standing by my values'

Read More »
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestinian-sheikh-raed-salah-prison-israel-jerusalem-al-aqsa-interview>

The court rejected the appeal and ruled that Salah would stay in isolation
until the end of his sentence.

Omar Khmaisa, one of Salah's lawyers, told Middle East Eye that the sheikh
had suffered appalling conditions in solitary confinement and was
not allowed to communicate with anyone.

“His isolation was total... He was detained alone in a separate section [of
the prison], which was an unusual procedure," Khmaisa said.

The lawyer added that Salah intends to continue with his work for the
Palestinian people.

Known for his defence of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and Palestinian
rights, Salah was the leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement
until it was banned
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/banning-islamic-movement-warning-us-all>
by Israel <https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel> in 2015.
A compass to al-Aqsa

Hundreds of residents and activists from different Palestinian cities and
villages in Israel greeted Salah at the entrance to his hometown of Umm
al-Fahm, a predominantly Palestinian village south of Haifa.

“The charges are religious and political pursuits… All I have ever
endeavoured to say to the Muslim world, the Arab world, and the Palestinian
people, is that our cause is one, embodied by Jerusalem and by al-Aqsa
Mosque,” Sheikh Salah said in a statement
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9fR6EZkb1s&t=51s> outside his home.

In November 2019, Salah faced charges of “incitement to terrorism”,
regarding speeches he made during protests in July 2017 against the
installation of metal detectors at the outer gates of the al-Aqsa compound
in occupied East Jerusalem.

The Israeli court sentenced
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestinian-raed-salah-israeli-prison-losing-appeal>
him to 28 months in prison, including an 11-month suspended sentence for
time served.

“I’ve known Sheikh Raed Salah since my childhood, for over 20 years, when I
used to attend his weekly sessions at al-Aqsa… His resonating words have
never left my mind,” Joumana Abu Arafa, a journalist from Jerusalem, told
MEE.

“I, like many others, see Raed Salah as a man with a compass that has
always pointed to al-Aqsa and attracted the free people of the world
towards him,” added Abu Arafa, who has documented Israel’s violations
against Salah for years.
Political intimidation

In his 2017 speech, Salah quoted verses from the Quran and the hadiths - a
collection of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad - as well as Palestinian
folklore.

Sheikh Salah told Middle East Eye in an interview last year that his words
were deliberately misconstrued in order to detain him.

'I, like many others, see Raed Salah as a man with a compass that has
always pointed to al-Aqsa and attracted the free people of the world
towards him'
*- Joumana Abu Arafa, journalist*

“The Israeli judiciary considered my use of this verse a call for
incitement, violence and terrorism,” he said at the time.

“Dozens of errors were committed by the public prosecution and its
witnesses in their explanations of parts of the Quran, Sunnah and the
Arabic language, and the judge deliberately ignored them.”

The sheikh’s supporters maintain that the his arrest is tantamount to
political intimidation intended to silence dissent and that his sermons are
within the bounds of free speech.

Salah, who served a nine-month sentence on similar charges in 2017, told
MEE in August 2020 that besides being imprisoned six times, he had been
arrested too many times to count and endured days'-long interrogations.

Israel had also put him under house arrest for three years under difficult
conditions, including not being allowed any visitors.

"I go to prison in complete contentedness, joy and assurance; standing by
my values, regretting nothing. I know that as soon as I enter prison, they
will start working to build a new case against me and launch a new round of
investigations," Salah told MEE shortly before he went to prison for the
seventh time.
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