Israel detains 25 Palestinian activists over Facebook posts

Israeli police detained 25 Palestinian social media activists in East Jerusalem on Thursday, a prisoners’ rights group said. Nasser Qous, head of the Jerusalem branch of the Palestinian Prisoners Society, told official Palestinian news agency Wafa that Israeli forces raided the homes of 25 Palestinian activists and detained them on charges of “incitement” due to their posts on Facebook. Israeli police also seized their computers. Fifteen of the activists were later released and 10 will be brought before an Israeli court, Qous said.

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In October, Haifa resident Razi al-Nabulsi, 23, was arrested and kept under house arrest for a week as a result of Facebook posts Israeli authorities argued constituted “incitement.” Lawyer Aram Mahameed explained that the charges stemmed from “a number of comments on al-Nabulsi’s Facebook page concerning issues like normalization (with the State of Israel), as well as the Prawer Plan,” a proposed Israeli plan that if carried out with displace 40,000 Bedouins from the southern Negev.

According to Ma’an, Palestinian news agency, Israeli forces detained a Palestinian journalist from Jerusalem while he was returning to Israel from Egypt on Thursday. Mohammad Abu Khdeir, an East Jerusalem resident with permanent Israeli residency who works for al-Quds newspaper, was stopped by Israeli authorities at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport and detained. A lawyer for the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, Ahmad Safiya, said that the Israeli court at Beersheba held a session for Abu Khdeir and extended his detention until Nov. 13. Safiya added that the court prevented Abu Khdeir access to a lawyer. The family of Abu Khdeir said that Israeli police had raided their house and confiscated many of the journalist personal belongings.