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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-raed-salah-freed-prison">middleeasteye.net</a>
<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Palestinian leader Raed Salah freed from Israeli prison after 17 months</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">By Lubna Masarwa in Occupied Jerusalem - December 13, 2021<br></div>
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<div><p>Prominent <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel" target="_blank">Palestinian</a>
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.</p>
<p>Salah’s lawyers in September appealed for his release, arguing to the
court that the detention has caused him physical and psychological
harm.</p>
<div>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestinian-sheikh-raed-salah-prison-israel-jerusalem-al-aqsa-interview" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/images-story/Raed%20Salah%20prison%20AFP.jpg?itok=MWLZKLMs" alt="" width="400" height="250"></a></p><p>Sheikh Raed Salah: 'I head to prison standing by my values'</p>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestinian-sheikh-raed-salah-prison-israel-jerusalem-al-aqsa-interview" target="_blank">Read More »</a>
</p></div>
<p>The court rejected the appeal and ruled that Salah would stay in isolation until the end of his sentence.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“His isolation was total... He was detained alone in a separate
section [of the prison], which was an unusual procedure," Khmaisa said.</p>
<p>The lawyer added that Salah intends to continue with his work for the Palestinian people.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/banning-islamic-movement-warning-us-all" target="_blank">banned</a> by <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel" target="_blank">Israel</a> in 2015.</p>
<h3>A compass to al-Aqsa</h3>
<p>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. </p>
<p>“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 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9fR6EZkb1s&t=51s" target="_blank">said in a statement</a> outside his home.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The Israeli court <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestinian-raed-salah-israeli-prison-losing-appeal" target="_blank">sentenced</a> him to 28 months in prison, including an 11-month suspended sentence for time served.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<h3>Political intimidation</h3>
<p>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. </p>
<p>Sheikh Salah told Middle East Eye in an interview last year that his
words were deliberately misconstrued in order to detain him.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>'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'<br><em>- Joumana Abu Arafa, journalist</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>“The Israeli judiciary considered my use of this verse a call for incitement, violence and terrorism,” he said at the time.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>Israel had also put him under house arrest for three years under difficult conditions, including not being allowed any visitors.</p>
<p>"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.</p>
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