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Israel Police Abduct Leading Palestinian Rights Activist
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| Israel
Abducts Palestinian Activist |
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, Jan 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli police abducted Mustapha Barghouti, a leading Palestinian rights activist, for three hours on Wednesday after he gave a press conference for an international solidarity movement, his assistant and police told news agencies.
Barghouti, the head of the largest Palestinian non-governmental organization concerned with health issues, was detained for questioning after entering Occupied and annexed East Jerusalem without permission from Israeli authorities, his assistant said.
Plain clothed police abducted him as he was leaving a news conference at the American Colony hotel in Occupied East Jerusalem and took him to the main police station, known as the "Russian Compound”, in west Jerusalem, according to the Palestine Monitor information service.
Police took Bargouti's ID when they abducted him, the Monitor said, although they did not ask for anyone else's identification.
He was released after around three hours, during which some 50 supporters staged a protest outside the jail.
Israeli police then escorted Barghouti to a checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah, an autonomous Palestinian city in the West Bank.
The protestors included two members of the European parliament, Ulla Sandbaek of Denmark and Luisa Morgantini of Italy, who were forbidden from traveling with Barghouti, the Monitor reported.
Barghouti, whose cousin Marwan Barghouti is the head of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction in the West Bank, is the president of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, a physician and a human rights activist.
The Palestine Monitor called him a "leading member of Palestinian civil society" who has "for years peacefully worked to end the Israeli occupation."
He was hosting a press conference for international activists who have staged a number of demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinians and calling for international observers to monitor the 15-month security crisis.
Activists from Britain, France, the United States, Belgium and Italy have joined hundreds of Palestinian protestors, often being dispersed by Israeli occupation troops using tear gas or firing warning shots over their heads.
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