Palestinian Poet Dareen Tatour Sentenced to Five Months in Israeli Prison For Poetry
'Palestinian-Israeli poet Dareen Tatour was sentenced to five months in prison Tuesday after having served nearly three years under house arrest for “incitement to violence” and “supporting terror” through social media posts.
In May, Tatour was convicted by a Nazareth district court. On that occasion, Tatour warned "the whole world will hear my story. The whole world will hear what Israel's democracy is. A democracy for Jews only.”
Among the posts cited by the Israeli court was a poem titled Resist, My People, Resist Them, a news story from Islamic Jihad calling for “a continuation of the Intifada,” and two pictures: one of an Israeli-Palestinian woman who was murdered by Israeli occupation forces after wielding a knife and another of Ali Dawabsheh and Muhammad Abu Khdeir, Palestinian children killed by Jewish extremists in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
According to the court, the most controversial line in Tatour’s poem is "I will not succumb to the 'peaceful solution' / Never lower my flags / Until I evict them from my land."
Her case has spurred criticism within and outside of Israel from Jewish and non-Jewish activists who argue Israel is violating her right to free speech. United States-based group Jewish Voice for Peace denounced the prison sentence, saying “#PoetryIsNotACrime but in Israel, they will put you in prison for it.”'
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