Israeli police stormed a well-known Palestinian bookstore in occupied East Jerusalem, and the owner’s detention shocked many people in the city’s cultural, journalistic and diplomatic community.
Mahmoud Muna and his nephew, Ahmad, have been in custody since Sunday on widespread charges of disrupting the public order. Their lawyer, Nasser Ode, said they were kept overnight in frozen state.
Ode said they were also filed to further detain them under house arrest and ban them from the educational bookstore store.
The man runs three bookstores popular with tourists, journalists and diplomats.
They specialize in books, newspapers and comics on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Middle Eastern history and culture. Between them, the three shops have hundreds of publications in several languages, and is the focus of the urban cultural scene.
However, police attacked two stores on Sarah Addin Street without warning, according to the boys’ family on Sunday afternoon.
Using an online translation application, I removed books with the words “Palestinian” or “Palestinian” in their titles, as well as publications that feature the Palestinian flags in red, green and white.
Among the seized publications, a book recently released featuring books on the conflict in Gaza and a children’s coloring book on the work by artist Banksy and Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.
An Israeli police statement said the two men were arrested on suspicion of “selling books that include inciting and supporting terrorism.”
The statement said the police “continue to their efforts to disrupt the inciting and assistance of terrorism, but also to arrest those involved in crimes that threaten the safety of Israeli citizens.”
The justification of raiding bookstores and arresting owners has been roundly denounced by supporters and clients as another disturbing attack on Palestinian cultural institutions after previous actions against theatres and educational facilities.
Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Nathan Thrall launched his book at the Education Book Hall in the life of Abed Salama in the anatomy of Jerusalem’s tragedy.
Outside of the court hearing, he said: “This is part of a long-standing policy of crushing perceived claims of Palestinian nationalism in East Jerusalem. So they went into the shop and took a book called “Palestine.” “
He added: “It’s just a thin ideology as paper by words on the page.”
Other supporters who chant slogans for the release of men have raised dark images from history in which the forfeiture of books and other literary material has often begun attacks on freedom and minority rights in such actions. He said he did.
The men remain in custody, but they are seeking to be released, and one of the shops was later reopened, amid the presence of several diplomats from consulates in Europe and around the world at the courts, and the number People quickly passed by to express their support.
