Swiss court rules Electronic Intifada director abduction and deportation was illegal

A Zurich court has ruled that the arrest and deportation of Palestinian-American journalist and Electronic Intifada (EI) director Ali Abunimah in January 2025 was illegal. The United Nations and Swiss human rights groups condemned the Swiss police’s actions.

Ali Abunimah’s abduction illegal

Ali Abunimah was abducted off the street by plainclothes police after arriving in Switzerland to speak at an event, held for two days and then summarily deported. The police agency director behind his abduction subsequently took a highly-paid job with an Israeli firm run by the IDF general responsible for the “General’s Plan” to force Palestinians to choose between being ethnically cleansed or murdered.

Now the Administrative Court of the Canton of Zurich has ruled that the police’s actions were unlawful and violated both the Swiss constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In an article about the ruling, Abunimah said that it:

totally vindicates my position that there was no legal basis whatsoever for me to be abducted off the street by plainclothes officers on 25 January 2025, while I was on my way to speak at an event focused on the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Abunimah said of his experience:

I was thrown in a cell for three days, without being allowed to contact my family or communicate with the outside world, and then forcibly deported.

These illegal actions ensured that I was unable to participate in public or media events aimed at informing people in Switzerland about the genocide in Gaza and the complicity of Swiss institutions in these ongoing crimes.

The Canton court ruled that the Zurich police’s actions were illegal because they had no lawful basis to target Abunimah, so any orders issued to arrest him were unlawful and he was never given any valid reasons for his detention.

The court ordered the Canton of Zurich to pay Abunimah’s legal costs. He has now said that he plans to apply for compensation for the illegal detention and will donate any monies “to the direct benefit of survivors and victims of the Israeli genocide.”

More to follow

Ali Abunimah also has two other appeals still in process against an entry ban placed on him and the expulsion order issued against him. He has said that he believes the purpose of his victimisation was to instil fear in others as a deterrent against exposing and opposing Israel’s crimes. He has also filed criminal complaints.

The harassment he suffered is entirely in line with the actions of government, police and the judiciary in the UK, Germany, Austria and other European countries targeting pro-Palestinian activism and protest.

Abunimah also notes that Swiss parliamentarians had already identified “a series of irregularities” in his targeting:

In November, a Swiss parliamentary committee concluded that there was a series of irregularities surrounding my arrest, and evidence of improper interference by Nicoletta della Valle, a senior federal police official with close ties to Israel.

He thanked his lawyers, as well as the many supporters who had crowdfunded his legal action, and called for mass solidarity and action against state repression of anti-genocide speech and protest:

In these days of cowardice and complicity by governments in the face of shocking and monstrous crimes, it is more important than ever that citizens everywhere speak out. It is therefore vital that we fight back fiercely when our right to speak is attacked by government repression.

Featured image via the Canary