Israeli authorities have released Palestinian journalist Abed Abou Shhadeh after detaining him for five days without charge.
Speaking after his release, Abou Shhadeh said on Sunday that his detention was part of “political measures” intended not only for him “but to intimidate Arab society as a whole”.
“In my view, the most appropriate response is to reaffirm among ourselves that we are on the right side, that our path is the path of truth,” he said, adding that he would continue his work as a journalist.
Abou Shhadeh was held in a Shin Bet intelligence facility in Petah Tikva, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, after being detained on Tuesday on suspicion of “contact with a foreign agent”.
He was suspected of receiving money from foreign sources in order to support Israel’s Arab voters, according to the legal rights group Adalah, which is part of his defence team.
The accusation came after Abou Shhadeh, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, spoke on the al-Midan podcast for the Arab48 website and appeared as an analyst on Al Jazeera.
He addressed topics similar to those discussed in Israeli media outlets, according to Hadeel Abu Salih, his legal counsel and a human rights lawyer with Adalah.
“It was obvious from the first day, from Thursday, that the police doesn’t have, any evidence in this context,” Abu Salih said. All of the suspicion relied on a public conversation he had with Palestinian intellectual Azmi Bishara when he was in Qatar.
“This is now being criminalised only because the speakers are Palestinians,” Abu Salih said. “Or when Palestinians are asking to analyse their political reality. The Israeli system turned that discussion and analysis into a criminal suspicion.”
“They were trying to say that he’s not a journalist, that he’s a political counsel.”
The lawyer said Abou Shhadeh was arrested in the middle of the night on Tuesday after 15 Israeli security officers raided his home in Jaffa and confiscated personal belongings, such as electronic devices and books, in front of his two children.
His five-day detention was “part of the campaign against the votes of the Arabs and Palestinians in Israel”, Adalah founder Hassan Jabareen told Al Jazeera.
Jabareen said Israel sought to “delegitimise their votes” by the claims against Abou Shhadeh.
“He travelled to Doha as a journalist … he came back as a journalist. But he was arrested as an Arab political person,” Jabareen said. “They tried to use him in order to say that Arabs use illegal [means] in their political participation in the Israeli elections. ”
