Arrest Me

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The author is among the Arab writers most exposed, in the modern era, to repressive measures at the hands of Arabs and Israelis alike. He has been fired upon repeatedly, was once struck by four bullets, has been denied employment in both Jordan and Palestine, has been arrested time and again by the Zionist entity and the Palestinian Authority, and has been placed under house arrest and travel bans. Whoever wishes to write about the arbitrary measures Arab writers and intellectuals face need only look to this author as the very embodiment of every kind of persecution. Once again, for the seventh time, the Palestinian Authority arrested the author, on February 2, 2016, over his defense of the necessity of applying the laws in force, issued by the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority. The satellite channel “Al-Quds,” which broadcasts from Beirut, held an interview with me about the Palestinian situation, in which I called for reviving two Palestinian laws: the PLO’s revolutionary law issued in 1979, and the election law issued in 2005, which fixes the term of the Palestinian Authority’s presidency at four years only. There are provisions in the Palestinian revolutionary law stating that anyone who spies for Israel, or cooperates with it, or obstructs the work of the forces of the revolution against it, and so on, is punishable by death, and I cited that text on air. Note that this revolutionary law remains in force to this day, and some members of the Palestinian security services who fled Gaza before Hamas’s forces in 2007 were held accountable under it — yet most people, including some legal professionals, know nothing about it. It appears the pillars of the Palestinian Authority were alarmed and terrified by the mention of these two laws, since they themselves violate the provisions contained in them, and the president of the Authority violates the election law, having now spent eleven years in the presidency even though his mandate ended back in 2009. So they decided to manufacture an uproar through Palestine TV. And that is exactly what happened. The channel hosted a sheikh to issue a fatwa expelling me from the community of Islam, and a university professor to expel me from the community of scholarship. Neither of them read the actual texts of the two laws to viewers; they contented themselves with heaping the accusation that I was calling for the president to be put to death by execution. In truth, I never called for anyone to be killed or executed, since that is a matter for the courts, not for me — my argument was that nations that do not respect the law can never stand on their own feet or achieve freedom. And of course, the poor anchor insisted on piling on accusations and directing questions meant to diminish my scholarly standing.

Stages of the Arrest

I was aware that the Palestinian Authority would move to arrest me, and I was ready, especially since my prison-clothes bag is always kept packed. And while I was at the entrance to my house on February 2, 2016, I was surprised by a Palestinian police car stopping in front of it. Four Palestinian policemen got out of the car and rushed at me, saying: “Hand over your ID, hand over your mobile phone, and come with us, in God’s name.” I asked them to wait a moment so that I could inform my wife, Zain al-Nisa, of the arrest, fetch my arrest bag, and lock the front door. They refused, and behaved with utter arrogance. It was urgent for me to speak with my wife, because we are a family exposed to attacks by thugs, hoodlums, and regime enforcers, and if she were unable to reach me, she would wander about deeply anxious and confused. In any case, they refused — even though the Zionist officer who arrested me in 2014 provided every facility for me to speak with my family. The interrogation was the second stage, and the deputy prosecutor leveled three charges against me: undermining the prestige of the state, spreading false news, and defaming high officials — that is, the president of the Authority. Regarding undermining the prestige of the state, I denied the existence of a Palestinian state at all — what exists is only a self-rule administration with no prestige to undermine. As for spreading false news, it turned out the deputy prosecutor was referring to a piece of news published by one of the pillars of the Authority about the thwarting of 200 Palestinian attempts against the Zionists. As for the third charge, I said it was not valid, because we have no “high officials” in Palestine at all — legally speaking, there is no president of the Authority.

Zain al-Nisa’s (Umm Muhammad’s) Return

Umm Muhammad tried calling me on my mobile phone and got no answer, and returned home alone. She found the front door open, and searched for me in vain. She began asking the neighbors, but no one could help her find out where I was. She grew deeply suspicious, especially given the threats we live under, as I mentioned. My daughter Mais broke down in tears, and our neighbor searched the house and found one room locked, so he broke down the door, thinking I might be inside, dead. Tension mounted further when I was not found in the room. Then my wife remembered the security cameras around our house and checked them, and saw on the screen the police car and its men. Several satellite channels then broadcast images of the Palestinian police publicly. The third stage was my committal to prison. They took me to the criminal prison in Nablus, because they always work hard not to acknowledge the existence of political prisoners, fearing the reaction of certain European states. They placed me in the bounced-checks ward. The room was extremely filthy, foul-smelling, and packed with detainees. Its sanitary facilities were unsanitary, and no one wishing to pray could purify himself there. As for the cockroaches, they roamed the room at their leisure, and one of them — or, as the Egyptian actress would say, a “cockroachess” — crawled into my ear while I slept.

The Court

The Nablus court held a session to extend my detention, and the judge rejected the request for release on bail, extending my detention by fifteen days to complete the investigation, even though the deputy prosecutor had told me the investigation was already finished. My lawyer submitted a request for release three days later, the judge accepted it, and I was released on February 7, 2016. That is, the matter has not ended — I am still awaiting trial, and the source of suspicion now is not the judge directly, but the external forces pressuring the judge.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “اعتقلوني” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.