Thousands demand ‘apology and reparations’ after journalist Ali Abunimah’s arrest in Switzerland

Ali Abunimah is executive director of important pro-Palestinian media outlet The Electronic Intifada. And Switzerland is facing demands for “an apology and reparations” after its highly controversial political decision to detain him over the weekend.

Activists in Switzerland had invited Abunimah to speak at an event on 25 January. But “three plainclothes police officers violently arrested” him before he could. They reportedly “forced him into an unmarked vehicle without disclosing where he was being taken”. After two nights in jail, the country deported him.

Swiss Action For Human Rights started a petition upon his arrest. And it didn’t just demand his release. It also called on Swiss authorities to give Abunimah “an apology and reparations… for arbitrarily detaining him”. Additionally, it asked for “an investigation into the procedure that led to this faulty decision by Fedpol and the Cantonal police leading to accountability for those responsible”, along with “strict compliance with human rights standards and in particular the guarantee to freedom of expression in Switzerland and an end to State repression of free speech”.

Over 19,000 people had signed the petition at the time of writing.

Ali Abunimah: the crime of being a journalist with integrity

Upon his release on 27 January, Abunimah described how police had treated him like a criminal without telling him what his supposed crime was. He spent “three days and two nights in a Swiss prison cut off from communication with the outside world, in a cell 24 hours a day with one cell mate, not even permitted to contact my family”. The police accused him:

of “offending against Swiss law” without ever telling me what crime I had committed in Switzerland or listing any charges.

His crime, he asserted, 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.

He refused most food and drink they offered him, and refused to speak to intelligence agents without his lawyer present.

He also contrasted his treatment with that of “Israeli president Isaac Herzog, who declared at the start of the genocide that there are no civilians in Gaza, no innocents,” but who “received a red carpet welcome in Davos” just days before Abunimah’s arrest.

And he stressed:

I think it’s important for people to know the depths to which their Western so-called “democracies” have sunk in the abject service of genocidal Zionism….

Journalism is not a crime! Speaking out for Palestine is not a crime! Standing against racist genocidal Zionism is not a crime!

The Israel connection

Amid the outpouring of solidarity for Ali Abunimah, rapper Lowkey tweeted a picture of the man behind his arrest “speaking at a solidarity with Israel event”.

This picture has emerged of Mario Fehr, Justice Director behind the arrest of Ali AbuNimah in Zurich, speaking at a solidarity with Israel event. pic.twitter.com/CQVYj8CpXV

— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) January 26, 2025

Zurich security department head Mario Fehr also sought to spread lies about Abunimah following his arrest, as journalist Jonathan Cook reported:

The head of Zurich's department of security peddles three lies in one short sentence on Ali Abunimah's arrest to stop his speaking tour.

* Abunimah is not an 'Islamist'. He's entirely secular.

* The claim he's a 'Jew hater' is beyond preposterous. One of his closest, longtime… pic.twitter.com/S1HJHGA5Lt

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) January 26, 2025

The Grayzone, meanwhile, has published numerous quotes from Fehr showing his pro-Israel fanaticism. Switzerland, though often historically neutral, has taken a clear pro-Israel position during the genocide in Gaza, and has been building links with the occupying settler-colonial power for years.

‘The depths to which Western so-called “democracies” have sunk’

As The Electronic Intifada pointed out:

Abunimah’s arrest appears to be part of a growing backlash from Western governments against expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Last year, several activists and journalists in Britain were arrested, raided or charged using “counter-terror” powers. These include Asa Winstanley, an associate editor with The Electronic Intifada, whose home was raided and his computers and phones seized. Winstanley has not been charged with any crime.

Richard Medhurst, one of the journalists whom the British state has targeted, has just revealed that:

The police are (again) seeking to extend their “terrorism” investigation against me by another 3 months, til May 2025 at least.

The mainstream media, meanwhile, has been eerily quiet about the intensifying repression of journalists with integrity. As Declassified UK journalist Matt Kennard stressed, this shows that:

The media and civil society has been captured.

Not a single word on Richard Medhurst, Asa Winstanley, Sarah Wilkinson in a UK newspaper either.

I find this more scary than the arrests themselves.

The public realm in Europe lies undefended. The media and civil society has been captured. https://t.co/acpXr3pCzn

— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) January 27, 2025

UN special rapporteurs, Amnesty International, and Geneva-based rights group Euro-Med Monitor all criticised Abunimah’s arrest.

Featured image via screengrab