Sheikh Ra’ed Salah head of the Islamic Movement in Israel still suffers from inhumane incarceration conditions and maltreatment in his solitary confinement in Ramon jail.
According to his lawyer and family the Sheikh is completely isolated from other prisoners in the jail prohibited from obtaining books and newspapers and deprived of his simplest needs.
Sheikh Salah is only allowed to see his lawyer once every two weeks and his wife and kids once a month the lawyer told the family.
According to his family Sheikh Salah is slated to complete his prison sentence on December 13 but Israeli jails could delay his release until the end of December.
The Israeli high court of justice rejected in mid-October an appeal filed by Sheikh Salah’s lawyer against a previous order issued by the district court in Beersheba on August 18 2021 to keep him in solitary confinement.
Sheikh Salah head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel was detained in August 2017 and indicted for incitement over his criticism of the deployment of metal detectors at the entrances leading the Aqsa Mosque compound in Occupied Jerusalem.
He was sentenced to 28 months in prison by an Israeli court but he served 11 months in jail half of which in solitary confinement before he was moved to house arrest.
In August Salah returned to prison after two years under house arrest.
His lawyer already accused Israel of prosecuting Salah for his religious and national beliefs and not because of any criminal offence.
Born in 1958 Salah is a poet and father of eight children. He started his public work as mayor of Umm al-Fahm an Arab city in Israel.
As his anti-occupation speeches were widely admired by the Palestinian people in general and the Arab citizens of Israel in particular he was exposed to repeated detention and persecution by the Israeli police.
In 2003 Salah was arrested on allegations of funding a Palestinian resistance group. Two years later he was banned by Israel from travel.
In 2010 the Palestinian Sheikh was sentenced to five months in prison for allegedly assaulting an Israeli police officer.
A staunch defender of his people and their Islamic holy sites Salah has staged a number of protests against Israeli policies and campaigned against the presence and expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories especially in Jerusalem.
