Palestinian poet sentenced to five months in prison
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Nazareth: Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour was sentenced to five months in prison Tuesday for incitement to violence by the Nazareth District court.
An Israeli citizen, Tatour was convicted in May on charges, based on her social media posts, of incitement to violence and supporting terrorist organizations.
Unfazed by the verdict, the 36-year-old poet hailing from the Galilee village of Reineh, near Nazareth said, "I expected prison and that's what happened. I didn't expect justice”
“ The prosecution was political to begin with because I'm Palestinian, because it's about free speech and I'm imprisoned because I'm Palestinian.” She was quoted as saying.
Tatour has long been a cause célèbre for activists fighting for free speech. Following the sentence, social media erupted with vociferous condemnation against it.
In October 2015, a video of Tatour, which received more than 200,000 views, showed her reading a poem Resist my People, Resist Them,” against the backdrop of masked people throwing stones and bombs at Israeli security forces.
The poem raised heckles of Israeli authorities leading to her arrest and subsequent conviction.