The Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs has said that dozens of Palestinian citizens have been detained for expressing their opinions on social media pages by Israel since the Jerusalem Intifada (uprising) started over two years ago.
In a press release on Sunday Abdul-Naser Farwana director of the documentation unit at the commission stated that 280 Palestinians including women children journalists and writers had been arrested since early October 2015 after they had posted remarks pictures or photos on different social media websites.
Some of them were also arrested for sharing liking or commenting on postings published by others on Facebook or Twitter pages or for joining other accounts Farwana added.
According to him several of those were indicted for incitement sentenced to different jail terms with sometimes financial penalties and others were transferred to administrative detention with no indictment or trial.
However some detainees were released on condition of not using Facebook for different periods of time.
Farwana described the detention and punishment of Palestinians because they expressed their own opinions on social media as “arbitrary and a violation of the international law.”
