On the morning of November 9, 2023, leading member of the Israeli Communist Party (Maki), former leader of Hadash, and chairman of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, Mohammad Barakeh, was arrested alongside members of the Balad party: Sami Abu Shehadeh, Mtanes Shehadeh, Haneen Zoab, and the party’s general secretary Yousef Tatour. Fellow member of the High Follow-Up Committee Mahmoud Mawasi was also detained.
Comrade Barakeh was arrested following his announcement of a protest to be held later that day denouncing the war in Gaza. The protest was to be organized by Arab officials and the High Follow-up Committee, and no more than 50 people were expected to attend. Barakeh emphasized that, according to Israeli law, the protest did not require a permit and requested that the police refrain from interfering with its organization. The police however detained him and his colleagues anyway for “defying police instructions and attempting to organize an unlawful protest that had the potential to incite public disorder and disrupt the peace.”
On November 8, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the police have no authority to sweepingly and arbitrarily ban protests by Palestinian citizens in Israel, with no exception being made during wartime. In practice, however, the Israeli Police have been quick to ban and crack down on all anti-war and anti-occupation demonstrations, particularly those held and organized by Palestinian citizens of Israel. The Israeli Police and its ban on demonstrations is intended to silence all forms of criticism and to suppress the freedom of expression of not just Palestinian citizens but any Israeli citizen organizing anti-occupation activities.
The Israeli Communist Party (Maki) stated on November 9: “The unlawful arrests today come at the heels of orders issued by the Israeli Police to ban all demonstrations calling to end the war in Gaza and the occupation, upheld by the Supreme Court yesterday. It reflects the swift intensification of state repression against the Palestinian minority, which includes legal prosecution of citizens who express their solidarity with Gaza or their Palestinian identity on social media, as well as swift amendments to Emergency Regulations, which sanction shooting live ammunition at unarmed civilian demonstrations.”
The Israeli Communist Party (Maki) has since reported that on November 10, comrade Barakeh was released from police custody without any restrictions after hours of interrogation. Sami Abu Shehadeh, Mtanes Shehadeh, Haneen Zoab, Yousef Tatour and Mahmoud Mawasi have all since been released after similar conditions of detention and interrogation as well, although have had restrictions placed upon them, such as being distanced from Nazareth for two weeks and are prohibited from organizing demonstrations for a similar time period.
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