The Arab-Israeli poet Dareen Tatour was sentenced to five months in prison yesterday for incitement to hatred and links to terrorist groups. The woman was arrested in 2015. Her sentence arrives a few days after the release of 17-year-old Ahed Tamimi.
Nazareth (AsiaNews / Agencies) - An Israeli court yesterday sentenced an Arab-Israeli poetess to five months in prison for "incitement to violence" and "support for terrorist organizations".
Dareen Tatour, 36, posted a video in October 2015 where she reads a poem entitled "Resist, my people, resist them," ". The video was accompanied by images of clashes between Palestinians and Israelis. In addition, the poetess wrote several posts on social media in support of struggling Palestinians. Tatour was arrested in the Arab village of Reineh, near Nazareth, on October 11, 2015. The woman spent several months in prison before being forced to house arrest in January 2016. At the beginning she was confined to a flat in Tel Aviv and her movements were limited because the Israeli authorities considered her a "threat to public security".
The court of Nazareth issued the sentence. The poem was quotedin the charge sheet, it contains the following lines: "For an Arab Palestine, I will not succumb to the 'peaceful solution,' Never lower my flags, Until I evict them from my land, Resist the settler's robbery, And follow the caravan of martyrs."
In addition to inciting the struggle contained in the poems, prosecutors accuse the woman of having cited a declaration on Islamic jihad calling for "the continuation of the intifada throughout the occupied territories".
"I expected prison and that's what happened. I didn't expect justice. The prosecution was political to begin with because I'm Palestinian, because it's about free speech and I'm imprisoned because I'm Palestinian", she told Israel's Haaretz newspaper. Last year she told the agencies: "They did not understand my poetry. There is no appeal for violence: there is a struggle ".
Her sentence came a few days after the release of 17-year-old Ahed Tamimi, who was imprisoned for eight months for trying to slap an Israeli soldier.