Arab-Israeli poet Dareen Tatour was found guilty of incitement to violence and supporting a terror organization, for poems and comments she posted to social media, in a decision handed down by the Nazareth Magistrate’s Court Thursday morning.
The two-and-a-half-year legal and literary saga, which has garnered international attention, has become a battleground for debates over free speech, discrimination and relations between Israel’s Jewish majority and its Arab minority.
“I never expected justice from the Israeli courts,” Tatour said in response to the verdict.
“I knew that I would be convicted of the accusations… I will… keep writing.”
Tatour, 36, is an Israeli citizen from the village of Reineh in the north of Israel. She was indicted in November 2015 for pictures and poems posted to Facebook and Youtube, and has since been held under house arrest. Tatour is one of only a few Israelis who have been convicted for their social media activity.
Read the full story from 2018 in The Jerusalem Post.
Samuel Thrope 