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Israel questions anti-occupation activist on suspicion of ‘incitement to terror’

February 25, 2020 at 11:35 am

Israeli anti-occupation activist Jonathan Pollak is arrested by Israeli forces, 25 February 2020 [Federación Libertaria Argentina/Facebook]

Israeli police questioned anti-occupation activist Jonathan Pollak yesterday “on suspicion of incitement to violence and terror”, reported Haaretz.

The basis for the investigation is an article Pollak wrote for Haaretz, where he is also an employee.

The piece, “published in the online edition of Haaretz in Hebrew”, was titled: “Why I refuse to cooperate with the court”.

The investigation is “taking place with the approval of the State Prosecutor’s Office”, said the report, and after acting attorney general Raz Nazri had indicated last week that “he was launching a criminal probe against Pollak”.

According to the report, in an article “erroneously posted on the Haaretz website in an unedited version”, Pollak wrote: “Yes, we must cross the lines and break the law. Despite the price, we must join the children of the stones and firebombs. We must march in their footsteps.”

READ: Free Jonathan Pollak

The report added that “these sentences were removed from the article shortly after its publication on the website, and did not appear in the print version of the newspaper.”

For Pollak’s attorney, Gaby Lasky,

the unusual speed with which the Attorney General’s Office ordered an investigation of Jonathan Pollak, and his speedy summons by the police, arouse a strong suspicion that the investigative entities surrendered to the continued pressure of the right.

Lasky added that she suspected the authorities are “trying to ‘balance’ the attorney general’s decision to stay the proceedings in the criminal complaint filed by the extremist right-wing organization Ad Kan against Pollak and two other activists”.

Last week, Pollak was released from custody “after the attorney general ordered a stay in the proceedings against him and two other activists, saying they were improper”.

He had been initially arrested “due to his refusal to report for hearings regarding the complaint filed against him” by right-wing activist group Ad Kan.

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