Palestinian poet jailed for online incitement freed

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour, jailed for five months for alleged incitement and support of terrorism, in her online poems and posts on social media platforms, was released from prison on Thursday.

Tatour posted a video clip of herself reading her poem "Resist, my people, resist them", in October 2015, accompanied by pictures of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli occupation troops, according to Israeli occupation authorities.

She was sentenced in July and released on Thursday due to time served before her conviction, she and a prison spokesman said.

"Freedom is something so sweet that I can't even describe it," Tatour told AFP after her release.

She added that she planned to publish a collection of poems and a novel on her experience in prison.

International writers' group PEN defended Tatour's actions.

She was "convicted for doing what writers do every day — we use our words to peacefully challenge injustice", the group said.

The offending verses were quoted in Hebrew in the charge sheet, but according to an English translation on the Arabic literature site ArabLit, they contained the following:

"For an Arab Palestine, I will not succumb to the 'peaceful solution', Never lower my flags, Until I evict them from my land, Resist the settler's robbery, And follow the caravan of martyrs."

Prosecutors said that on October 4, 2015 she also quoted a statement calling for "continuation of the intifada in every part of the West Bank".

Tatour, from the Arab village of Reineh near Nazareth, was arrested a week later.

1948-Palestinians (Arab Israelis) are descendants of Palestinians who remained on their land following the occupation of Palestine and inception of Israel, in 1948.

They account for some 17.5 per cent of Israel's population and largely support the Palestinian cause.