Journalist Arrested In Switzerland For Criticizing Israel.

The Acclaimed Journalist Ali Abunimah Was Arrested For Opposing Genocide.

The trend of lawfare against journalists for doing accurate reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza continues with the recent arrest of Palestinian-American journalist Ali Abunimah in Switzerland.

According to his outlet The Electronic Intifada, Abunimah “was arrested by Swiss police ahead of a speaking event in Zurich on Saturday afternoon.”

The outlet went on to report that

The arrest came one day after Abunimah arrived in Zurich for a speaking tour.

When he arrived at Zurich airport on Friday, Abunimah was questioned by police for an hour before being allowed to enter the country.

Abunimah’s arrest appears to be part of a growing backlash from Western governments against expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

While further information about the arrest has yet to come out, it was almost certainly over his reporting on Palestine.

In July of last year, Abunimah was threatened with arrest by German authorities for giving a talk on Palestine over a Zoom meeting in the country. He wrote in the Electronic Intifada that:

About two hours before my scheduled talk on 26 July, I received via a lawyer in Germany a 15-page notice from government authorities in Berlin informing me that I am prohibited from participating in the conference by any means, including online. The penalties include fines and up to one year in prison.

This arrest fits a pattern in the Western world of states using lawfare to try to intimidate and silence journalists and activists from speaking out about Israel’s genocide in Gaza. This campaign has been especially prevalent in the UK.

Ali Abunimah’s colleague at the Electronic Intifada, Asa Winstanley previously had his house raided and devices seized by British “counterterrorism police” in October of last year.

UK authorities also arrested and charged freelance journalist Richard Medhurst at London’s Heathrow Airport over his reporting on Palestine.

UK authorities also charged pro-Palestine activist Richard Barnard for “expressing an opinion that is supportive of a proscribed (terrorist) organization” and raided the home of pro-Palestine journalist Sarah Wilkinson for “content that she has posted online”.

In all of these cases, the UK weaponized section 12 of the so-called terrorism act which makes it a criminal offense to say something supportive of a “proscribed terrorist organization”. Because Hamas and other Palestinian groups are labeled as “terrorists” by the UK government, they were able to weaponize this law to use it against the aforementioned journalists.

Given the fact that Switzerland officially designated Hamas as a “terrorist organization” last year, similar laws are likely being weaponized in the case against Abunimah.

Swiss media has reported that security director Mario Fehr denied Abunimah entry into Zurich, where he was scheduled to speak after absurdly labeling him an “Islamist Jew-hater” and even more absurdly claiming that he “endangers Switzerland's internal or external security”.

Swiss media also reported that this designation came in part based on the fact that Thomas Patzko called Abunimah “a mouthpiece for Hamas”.

Patzko is a board member of “Never Again Is Now” a think tank that claims to be “a non-profit organization dedicated to combating anti-Semitism” but which is clearly a front for the state of Israel.

Its website repeats numerous dubious zionist talking points including calling the West Bank “Judea and Samaria” and claiming that

Jews were removed from Gaza in 2005 when Israel withdrew to provide the Palestinian leadership with an opportunity to autonomously govern

ignoring the fact that Israel placed a brutal blockade on the Gaza Strip and routinely massacred civilians including peaceful protestors in 2018.

The group also adopts the IHRA detention of Antisemitism which falsely includes statements such as “comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” and “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” as examples of “Antisemitism”

Aside from the fact that these laws are a clear violation of free speech principles, the hypocrisy of them is outrageous. If Hamas are terrorists then the Israeli government- which just spent the last year slaughtering Palestinians in Gaza 70 percent of who were women and children and 90 percent of who were civilians-certainly are.

Yet there are no laws in any of these countries against supporting Israel’s bombardment of the people of Gaza, something that human rights organizations from Human Rights Watch to Amnesty International have called a genocide and which the ICC has called “crimes against humanity and war crimes”.

Swiss mainstream media has tried to justify the arrest of Abunimah by listing factual statements he has made. The Swiss mainstream media outlet “NZZ” tried to back up the claims that he was an “Islamist Jew Hater” by citing him saying “there is no credible evidence of a single rape on October 7”, something even the mainstream Times of London has admitted and for saying “Israel killed its own people on October 7” something that has been extensively documented in everything from the Isreali newspaper Haaretz to the Australian state broadcaster ABC news.

The fact that Ali Abunimah is an American-born citizen arrested by a foreign government over his reporting should cause an international scandal similar to that of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was charged by Russian authorities over his journalism on the Ukraine war.

Unfortunately, the principles of a free press are often ignored on the issue of Palestine, meaning that the mainstream media and American government will likely stay silent over this case.