South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP) condemns the arrest and deportation of a prominent journalist, Ali Abunimah, in Switzerland as a grave violation of the freedom of expression and media freedom. Ali Abunimah landed in Zurich for a planned speaking tour on the 24th January 2025. First he was subjected to questioning for an hour at the airport; the next day he was arrested by plainclothes police and taken away in an unmarked vehicle. Mr Abunimah was forced to spend two nights in prison before being deported on Monday.
Mr Ali Abunimah is a Palestinian-American journalist regularly published in both the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. He may be best known though as the co-founder and executive director of The Electronic Intifada website. He has appeared in numerous TV discussion programmes and won the Palestine Book Award General Prize for his 2014The Battle for Justice in Palestine.
The arrest was rightly condemned by many human rights activists as well as by UN personnel: Irene Khan, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression as well as Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories.
Not only was Mr Abunimah arrested and deported – he was also defamed. In justifying this treatment the state councillor and head of the Department of Security, Mario Fehr, said: ‘We do not want an Islamist Jew-hater who calls for violence in Switzerland.’
Such slander is openly hateful and discriminatory despite its pretence to oppose antisemitism. Mr Abunimah is certainly no Jew-hater; his concern for the rights of the oppressed align completely with a long tradition of ethical Jewish humanism. Instead, Mario Fehr’s words exhibit naked bigotry. Not only do we abhor the routine slurring of advocates for human rights as being antisemitic but we also point out the open Islamophobia and the absurdity of the accusation that Mr Abunimah would be calling for ‘violence in Switzerland’.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the West Bank and Gaza Strip warns that ‘The climate surrounding freedom of speech in Europe is becoming increasingly toxic, and we should all be concerned’. We believe the time for mere concern is long past and that the ‘free world’ has been shown to be anything but free. We demand that responsible Swiss authorities be held accountable for such a blatant violation of a journalist’s rights to the freedom of movement, speech and opinion.
In Ali Abunimah’s own words: ‘Journalism is not a crime! Speaking out for Palestine is not a crime! Standing against racist genocidal Zionism is not a crime!’
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Jo Bluen: +277 8053 9883