OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)
The Jerusalemite lawyer Hamza Qatina said that Israel’s deporting of the preacher of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, from the Mosque in which he has been delivering Friday sermons for 51 years, comes amid increasing numbers of deportation notices against Jerusalemites, in an explicit violation of the law and the freedom of worship.
Qatina, one of the members of the defense team of Sabri, added in an interview with Al-Jazeera, that the arrest and deportation of Sheikh Sabri comes after a “large-scale incitement campaign was launched against him by far-right parties and officials of the Israeli government,” explaining that they “take every opportunity to incite against Sheikh Sabri and incite against him.”
Last Friday, the Israeli occupation police arrested Sheikh Sabri on charges of incitement and terrorism, after he mourned and eulogized the chief of Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haneyya, in his last Friday sermon.
Later on, Sheikh Sabri was released under the condition of deportation from Al-Aqsa Mosque for a week, renewable to six months.
Qatina pointed to the increasing Israeli decisions of arbitrary deportation from Jerusalem and the denial of the Jerusalemites’ right to the freedom of worship.
