Jerusalem, May 13: Amnesty International called on Israeli authorities on Wednesday to end “harassment” of an Arab human rights activist held on suspicion of spying for the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Amnesty said Ameer Makhoul, an Arab citizen of Israel, has been denied legal advice while in custody.
The Israeli Prisons Authority referred an query on his situation to the Shin Bet security service, who could not immediately be reached for comment.
“His arrest and continued detention smacks of pure harassment, designed to hinder his human rights work,” an Amnesty statement said. “If this is the case, we would regard him as a prisoner of conscience (and) call for his immediate and unconditional release.”
Makhoul was arrested last week by police and Shin Bet agents in a raid on his home in the northern port city of Haifa.
Another Israeli Arab man, Omar Sayeed, also accused of spying for Hezbollah, was arrested on April 24 but news of the two cases was blacked out by a court order that was lifted only on Monday.
Makhoul, whose brother Issa is a former Israeli Arab lawmaker, heads Ittijah (the Union of Arab Community-Based Associations), a group that fights discrimination against Israeli Arabs.
“Ameer Makhoul is a key human rights defender, well-known for his civil society activism on behalf of the Palestinian citizens of Israel,” said the statement from London-based Amnesty.
Israel has often come under international criticism for ‘racism’ and mistreatment of its Arab minority, who are the original inhabitants of the land and today make up one fifth of its total population.
The Arab population is comprised of the descendants of the Palestinians who remained in their land following the creation of Israel in 1948.
Israel waged a bloody 34-day war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 that claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.
—Agencies