LONDON: Israeli authorities released the owners of a well-established Palestinian bookshop in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday after detaining them and confiscating their books on Sunday.
Saqi Books, the publisher of writer and bookseller Mahmoud Muna, confirmed that Mahmoud and his cousin Ahmed Muna were released after being detained for selling books related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which Israeli authorities considered “inciting violence.”
The Munas owns The Educational Bookshop, which is 38 years old and has two branches, one of which features a cafe and a small conference room located on the busy Salah Al-Din Street.
Mahmoud, who edited the “Daybreak in Gaza” collection with British filmmaker Matthew Teller last year, also runs the Bookshop at the American Colony Hotel. His family’s two bookshops have become essential stops for foreign journalists, diplomats, intellectuals and peace activists visiting East Jerusalem.
In 2011, they won the Best Library award in Palestine and were recognized as the third-best library in the Middle East by the Lonely Planet Foundation, the Wafa news agency reported.
After his release, Ahmed Muna described his arrest as "brutal and unjust." He said that Israeli authorities had placed both him and Mahmoud under house arrest for five days and prohibited them from entering the bookshop for 20 days.
Mahmoud and Ahmed appeared before an Israeli court on Monday afternoon, attended by EU representatives, including those from France and the UK.
The French Consulate in Jerusalem, which operates the French Cultural Center directly adjacent to the raided bookshop on Salah Al-Din Street, said on Monday afternoon that the Israeli “raid is an attack against freedom of expression. Those pressures should stop now.”
The Jerusalem-based writer Dima Al-Samman told Wafa that Israeli authorities “aim to erase anything related to Palestinian national culture and any manifestation of patriotism” in Jerusalem.
Jameel As-Salhut, another writer based in Jerusalem, wondered: “Why is ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’ afraid of books and culture?” He added that despite the Israeli escalation in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, “it is impossible for the Israeli military to succeed in suppressing Palestinian culture in Jerusalem.”
The Educational Bookshop is the third Palestinian bookstore to be raided and closed by Israeli authorities in East Jerusalem. Another recent raid occurred at a bookshop inside the Old City of Jerusalem’s Khan Al-Zeit bazaar, and the owner, Hisham Al-Ekramawi, was arrested during the incident.
