I’ve just recorded a video summarizing my reporting on the Shaul Horev laptop theft scandal. I hope you’ll promote the video through your social media networks and YouTube channels to bring it the audience it deserves.
Also, I’ve heard of many more secret Shabak arrests than I can possibly cover here at this blog. So I’ve created a new Facebook group, Stop Shabak: No More Administrative Detentions. Its purpose will be to document such arrests of Jewish and Palestinian security suspects. My belief is that bringing such activity out of the shadows will make the operations of the Shabak more transparent. The world should know who it has arrested so that it may be held more accountable for its opaque, unaccountable behavior.
Please consider joining the group. If you ever hear of such detentions, please post them there or send them to me and I will post them. I’d prefer information that isn’t based on rumors, but rather information that is solid and based on authoritative information and sources.
The first case reported on the group page concerns the arrest of Mohammad Sabaaneh, a cartoonist whose graphic work appears in Al-Hayyat al-Jedidah. He was arrested by the IDF on his return from Jordan. Though the charges are as usual opaque, he’s believed to have offered assistance to an unspecified “enemy” organization. Look at these cartoons and you’ll get a sense of how dangerous Sabaaneh is and why. His danger is posed by the pen, which the Israel national security state fears as much as the gun or the bomb.
Comics Alliance reports that Sabaaneh was brought to the U.S. in 2010 by the State Department under its International Visitor Leadership Program. A very dangerous figure indeed. Here’s more reporting on the story.
Cartoon movement in support of Mohammad Saba’aneh with an appeal by his family.
Palestinian rights: “the charges against the cartoonist are not known and he still doesn’t have the right to be assisted by a lawyer.”