Switzerland releases, deports renowned Palestinian journalist Ali Abunimah

Swiss officials have freed and deported prominent Palestinian American journalist Ali Abunimah, whom they arrested in the city of Zurich and held in police custody for three days, raising concerns about freedom of speech in the European country.

Abunimah, executive director of the online Electronic Intifada publication covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, confirmed his release in a post published on the X social media platform on Monday.

He said Swiss authorities detained him because of his advocacy for Palestinian rights.

“My ‘crime’? Being a journalist who speaks up for Palestine and against Israel’s genocide and settler-colonial savagery and those who aid and abet it,” the Palestinian American journalist wrote.

He was arrested in Zurich on Saturday before he was set to deliver a speech in the city. UN human rights experts and activists condemned the arrest.

The Reuters news agency, citing the Swiss police, said on Sunday that an entry ban and other measures under the country’s immigration law were the reason for Abunimah’s arrest.

The 53-year-old journalist said that when he was questioned by police officers, they accused him of “offending against Swiss law,” without providing specific charges.

He said he was “cut off from communication with the outside world, in a cell 24 hours a day”, adding that he was unable to contact his family. He added that he was only given back his phone at the gate of the plane that flew him to Istanbul.

Abunimah noted that during the period when he was taken to prison like a “dangerous criminal”, Switzerland welcomed Israeli President Isaac Herzog to the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“This ordeal lasted three days but that taste of prison was more than enough to leave me in even greater awe of the Palestinian heroes who endure months and years in the prisons of the genocidal oppressor,” Abunimah said.

“More than ever, I know that the debt we owe them is one we can never repay and all of them must be free and they must remain our focus.”

UN experts denounced Abunimah’s detention as an assault on free speech.

The UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, Irene Khan, called the arrest “shocking news” and urged Switzerland to investigate and release him.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, also called for an investigation into the incident.

“The climate surrounding freedom of speech in Europe is becoming increasingly toxic, and we should all be concerned,” Albanese wrote in a social media post.

The detention of Abunimah took place against the backdrop of intensified restrictions on pro-Palestinian advocates in Europe, amidst the catastrophic war on Gaza.

In April, Germany canceled a conference intended for advocates of Palestinian rights and barred British physician Ghassan Abu Sittah, who had provided medical assistance in Gaza, from entering the country.

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