Former chairman of Hadash and MK Mohammad Barakeh was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly inciting terrorism during a public rally, Israel Police said.
According to the police spokesperson, Barakeh gave a speech in 2022 where he said "words of praise and identification with terrorists and terrorist organizations."
Barakeh was arrested and questioned by the police, and Judge Oded Moreno from the Petah Tikva Magistrate's Court ordered that he be banned from entering the West Bank for 30 days, the police said.
His defense argued that Barakeh "is a politician who made a political speech, this is his political opinion and political expression is protected to the fullest extent of the law, and this is not the place to put political expressions into a mold of incitement and to criminalize political expressions that are uttered by Arab political representatives."
Judge Moreno countered that "a review of the investigation file reveals the existence of reasonable suspicion of the commission of the alleged offense."
Barakeh was arrested after he refused to be questioned
Barakeh was arrested after several attempts by the Ariel police to interrogate him without the need to detain him, something that he would "not respond to the occupation police in the Ariel settlement," while also appointing the Adalah legal center to represent him.
The police argued that Barakeh had to appear for questioning like any other citizen, which he again refused, leading to his arrest.
His photo and fingerprints were taken, while he was also interrogated for four hours.
The Arab Higher Monitoring Committee, an organization that coordinates Arab political action and which Barakeh used to preside, accused the police of conducting a "politically provocative" investigation.
Arab Israeli leaders decry arrest
The committee says that this is "another dangerous episode in the series of political persecutions aimed at intimidating the Arab community and deterring it from legitimate political activity and its struggle against the policy of occupation, racism, and political oppression."
According to the committee, this is a move "which is also directed at our Arab community and the Monitoring Committee, which is subject to intense incitement by the current and former ruling circles to suppress the legitimate political voice of our community and deprive our people of the right to fight for their national, ethnic and daily rights."
"This is an unnecessary arrest for political investigation, for a speech that Baraka gave in 2022, as part of a campaign of police officers' servility to their failed minister, who has been unable to fight organized crime for about four years," Ja'far Farah, founder of the Mossawa Center for Arab Civil Rights, and who was recently elected second on the Hadash list for the Knesset, told Walla.
"After his government failed on all fronts, they are trying to create a new front against the Arab public and its leaders in order to prevent their defeat in the elections," he added.