Palestinian political leader Sheikh Raed Salah has been released from a prison in Israel after serving 17 months on charges of \u201cincitement\u201d.
Salah, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and former head of the northern Islamic Movement, was released from Megiddo prison on Monday morning just north of his hometown of Umm al-Fahm, southwest of Nazareth city.
Dozens of people, including family, friends, and followers gathered along the main entrance to Umm al-Fahm with celebratory music, banners, and boxes of sweets to greet Salah upon his return home.
\u201cIt is a feeling mixed between pain and happiness. There is a lot of pain \u2013 he underwent a lot of injustice. He paid a high price out of his life because of the injustice he was exposed to by Israel,\u201d Khaled Zabarqa, Salah\u2019s lawyer, told Al Jazeera.
\u201cHe is a Sheikh to all of us. We are all Raed Salah. Men, women and children are all here for this wonderful celebration to welcome him,\u201d his niece, Muntaha Amara, told local media.
Israeli police arrested Salah in August 2017. He spent 11 months behind bars without charge before he was released and placed under restrictive house arrest, including wearing an ankle monitor, for a period of two years while his trial proceeded.
In August 2020, Salah was re-arrested and sentenced to 28 months in prison \u2013 including time served \u2013 on four charges out of an original 12.
He was indicted under charges of \u201cincitement to terror\u201d and supporting an outlawed organization \u2013 the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel \u2013 based on several of his public speeches and Facebook posts, according to his lawyer.
\u201cThe Sheikh\u2019s arrest, his conviction and his file were all unjust. He was detained and convicted based on his freedom of speech and opinion and his faith \u2013 his religion,\u201d said Zabarqa.
\u201cHe was being tried not because he carried out any kind of violation \u2013 he was tried because Israel wants, through these courts and processes, to change what Sheikh Raed Salah believes in, and this will not happen.\u201d
Born in 1958, Salah is one of the most influential Palestinian political and religious figures in historic Palestine, known locally as \u201cSheikh al-Aqsa,\u201d for his staunch defence of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem.
He has frequently called on Palestinian Muslims to increase their presence at the site which lies in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.
A former mayor of Umm al-Fahm, he was arrested in 2017 after a speech he made during large Palestinian protests in July after Israel installed metal detectors at the outer gates of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the wake of an attack there. Many Palestinians saw the installation of the metal detectors as a new restriction on their ability to access the site.
He said in an interview that the \u2018incitement\u2019 allegations against him included verses from the Qur\u2019an and Hadith by the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.
Salah was the head of the Islamic Movement\u2019s northern branch until 2015, when the Israeli government issued an executive order under the 1945 British-era Emergency Regulations banning it and 17 associated non-profit organisations.
Despite being outlawed, the Islamic Movement continues to have broad support among Palestinian citizens of Israel. Prior to the ban, it ran a network of charities, kindergartens, health clinics and social services. Israeli police and intelligence services seized its properties, closed its offices and confiscated computers and documents, before freezing its bank accounts.
Salah has been consistently targeted by Israeli authorities over the years and has been banned from travelling outside the country for reasons ostensibly related to \u201csecurity\u201d.
During his two years under house arrest, he said he was forced to wear an electronic ankle monitor that kept him constantly surveilled and was only allowed to leave his home at certain hours with an escort. His relatives were banned from visiting him and he was also forbidden from speaking to media outlets.
In May 2021, Salah\u2019s deputy Kamal al-Khatib was arrested by Israeli police and indicted for \u201cincitement to terrorism, violence, and identification with a terrorist organisation\u201d.
His arrest came amid widespread Palestinian protests, including in Israel, against Israeli air raids on the besieged Gaza Strip, crackdowns by Israeli forces at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, and protests against attempts to forcibly displace Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem.
He was released pending trial in July under restrictive measures including a ban on praying at al-Aqsa mosque for a period of three months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Palestinian political leader Sheikh Raed Salah has been released from a prison in Israel after serving 17 months on charges of \u201cincitement\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c59-islamic-world"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n