Swiss Ministry Of Defense Agents Tried To Interrogate Ali Abunimah

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While Palestinian American journalist Ali Abunimah was arbitrarily detained for around two days prior to deportation, he says agents from the Swiss Ministry of Defense attempted to interrogate him. It was the moment when he most feared that his detention could become a prolonged ordeal.

“I thought about [WikiLeaks founder] Julian Assange at that moment,” Abunimah shared. “I thought they can do anything. They can make up anything. They can frame you.”

Abunimah continued, “The way they’re framing this already about jihadi terrorism and violence against Jews, and now clearly these intelligence agents have been sent to talk to me. And that’s the moment I thought, does anyone know I’m here? I had no idea what was going on outside.”

Yet as it turned out, by Monday, a global outcry against Switzerland’s attack on a journalist had intensified. Two United Nations human rights officials, Amnesty International Europe, and Euro-Med Monitor, which is based in Switzerland, had all spoken out. Abunimah was finally released and allowed to fly home to Chicago.

Abunimah is the executive director and co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, an independent not-for-profit media organization focused on promoting Palestinian perspectives. He has written the books “One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse” (2006) and “The Battle for Justice In Palestine” (2014). He was in Switzerland for several speaking engagements.

Swiss police in Zurich arrested Abunimah on Saturday, January 25, in order to block him from delivering a lecture at an event organized by the Palestine Committee of Zurich.

Prior to that, Never Again Is Now (NAIN) Switzerland, a pro-Israel group, mounted a campaign of harassment and intimidation in the Swiss news media that led a school to revoke access to their building for a Saturday event. NAIN also successfully lobbied the Zurich police to issue a retroactive ban against an international journalist, despite the fact that Swiss immigration had stamped his passport and permitted him to enter the country.

For a broadcast that aired on the Electronic Intifada’s YouTube channel on January 28, Abunimah extensively recounted what happened to him from the time that he arrived in Zurich to the time that authorities brought him in handcuffs to the Zurich airport to ensure that he left Switzerland.

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