Israeli police detained 25 social media activists in Jerusalem on November 6, 2013, the Palestinian Prisoners Society reported.
Nasser Qous, head of the Jerusalem branch of the Palestinian Prisoners Society, told official news agency Wafa that Israeli forces raided 25 Palestinian activists, at home, in internet cafes and computer stores in the city, and detained them on charges of “incitement” due to their posts on Facebook, seizing their computers.
Fifteen of the activists were later released and 10 will be brought before an Israeli court, Qous said. He added that seven young women were among the kidnapped.
In October, Haifa resident Razi al-Nabulsi, 23, was arrested and kept under house arrest for a week as a result of Facebook posts Israeli authorities argued constituted “incitement.”
Lawyer Aram Mahameed explained that the charges stemmed from “a number of comments on al-Nabulsi’s Facebook page concerning issues like normalization (with the State of Israel), as well as the Prawer Plan,” a proposed Israeli plan that if carried out with displace 40,000 Bedouins from the southern Negev.
Reporters Without Borders ranked Israel 112th in the world for press freedom in its 2013 report, arguing that while Israeli journalists enjoy freedom of expression, there are major structural barriers related to military control and security issues that prevent a free press more generally.
