Switzerland releases, deports Palestinian-American journalist Ali Abunimah
Rights groups say his arrest is an attempt by the West to crush expressions of solidarity with Palestine.
Palestinian American journalist Ali Abunimah confirmed that Swiss authorities released and deported him after holding him for three days.
In a social media post on Monday, Abunimah, executive director of an independent online publication, Electronic Intifada (EI) said that Switzerland detained him ahead of a planned speaking event in Zurich.
"On Monday evening I was brought to Zurich airport in handcuffs, in a small metal cage inside a windowless prison van and led all the way to the plane by police," he said, recounting his deportation.
According to eyewitnesses: "Three plainclothes police officers violently arrested Abunimah and forced him into an unmarked vehicle without disclosing where he was being taken."
I’m free! I wrote this on the plane and I’m posting it just after landing at Istanbul. On Monday evening I was brought to Zurich airport in handcuffs, in a small metal cage inside a windowless prison van and led all the way to the plane by police. This is after three days and two… pic.twitter.com/GKvme89ouR
— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) January 27, 2025
'Settler-colonial savagery'
His arrest was slammed by the UN special rapporteurs as a move against the freedom of speech.
Irene Khan, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, called the arrest "shocking news" and urged Switzerland "to urgently investigate and release."
Euro-Med Monitor, a Geneva-based human rights group, also condemned the arrest by saying it was a "dangerous development that reflects a growing trend in Western governments to censor free speech and target journalists and activists who document the suffering of victims and stand up for Palestinian rights."
Abunimah said that his only crime was being a journalist who speaks up for Palestine and against Israel’s genocide and settler-colonial savagery and those who aid and abet it.
Growing backlash
On his arrival at Istanbul airport, the journalist narrated his ordeal in Swiss detention and his subsequent deportation in a post on X.
"I’m free! I wrote this on the plane and I’m posting it just after landing in Istanbul," he wrote.
He alleged he was not even permitted to contact his family and was accused of “offending against Swiss law” without listing any charges.
Describing the arrest as a "growing backlash from Western governments against expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people," EI noted that last year, several activists and journalists in Britain were arrested, raided or charged using "counter-terror" powers.
They included Asa Winstanley, an associate editor with EI, whose home was raided and his computers and phones seized, it said.
Abunimah was also interrogated by Swiss Defence Ministry intelligence agents. after he was "abducted" off the street, handcuffed, forced into an unmarked car and sped straight to the prison.
"I came to Switzerland at the invitation of Swiss citizens to talk about justice for Palestine, to talk about accountability for a genocide in which Switzerland too is complicit," he said.
The Palestinian journalist said that Israeli president Isaac Herzog, who declared at the start of the genocide that there are no civilians in Gaza, no innocents, received a red carpet welcome in Davos, but he was treated like a criminal for speaking truth to power.
"From the River to the Sea Palestine Will Be Free", he concluded his ordeal note.