On Monday, The Electronic Intifada announced that its Palestinian-American co-founder, Ali Abunimah, who had gone to Switzerland for a speaking event, was being deported after spending two nights in jail.
Ali Abunimah in 2009. (Hossam el-Hamalawy, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
Francesca Albanese, U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, joined those expressing mounting outrage at Ali Abunimah’s arrest in Zurich on Saturday. The Palestinian co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, was in the Swiss city for a speaking event.
“I share the shock and urge for a prompt investigation into this matter,” Albanese tweeted on Sunday. “The climate surrounding freedom of speech in Europe is becoming increasingly toxic, and we should all be concerned.”
[On Monday, Electronic Intifada announced on X that after spending two nights in jail he was being deported.]
The Electronic Intifada’s executive director @AliAbunimah was deported by Switzerland on Monday after spending two nights in jail. https://t.co/Mg4gJC6wc0
— Electronic Intifada (@intifada) January 27, 2025
[Later on Monday, Abunimah issued a statement about the incident on X.]
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… pic.twitter.com/GKvme89ouR
— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) January 27, 2025
Hossam Shabat, a Palestinian journalist from northern Gaza (who was wounded by Israel), also expressed his solidarity with Abunimah, stating: “I stand in solidarity with my colleague Ali Abunimah who was arrested in Switzerland. Palestinian journalists continue to be targeted in and outside of Palestine.
[See: Caitlin Johnstone: Another Journalist Arrested in Western Nation For Wrongthink About Israel]
According to a statement released by Swiss Action for Human Rights, Abunimah “was violently and forcibly taken by unidentified individuals in civilian clothing while walking on the streets of Zurich,” and was held in administrative detention,
The statement also pointed out,
“This follows a defamatory article published in a local newspaper, baselessly accusing him of radical islamism and antisemitism, accompanied by a request by cantonal police to prohibit him from entering the territory, supposedly based on the media accusations. Abunimah has not been condemned for any criminal offense in Switzerland, nor has his current case been examined by a judicial authority.”
After his arrest, Electronic Intifada in a statement released on Saturday, said:
“Abunimah’s arrest appears to be part of a growing backlash from Western governments against expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people…Speaking out against injustice in Palestine is not a crime. Journalism is not a crime.”
In October, the home of Abunimah’s colleague, Asa Winstanley, was raided and electronic devices seized by United Kingdom authorities, but was not charged with any crime.
This article is from Peoples Dispatch.
Views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’ has as many holes as the Swiss cheese.
It feels to me like the old colonial powers who continue their colonialism through the US empire are pulling out all the stops to maintain their grip on the indigenous people of the world. It’s definitely racist supremacy on display. They see indigenous as squatters on land that’s not making THEM money. Israel is their colonial project. Anyone standing in the way is a criminal to them. There’s no mystery to it. It’s racism coupled with greed.
Quite right.