An Israeli court jailed an Israeli Arab poet for five months on Tuesday after convicting her of incitement to terrorism for a poem and remarks she posted on social media during a wave of Palestinian street attacks.
Dareen Tatour, 36, posted on Facebook and YouTube a video of herself reading out her poem "Resist, My People, Resist", as a soundtrack to footage of masked Palestinian youths throwing stones and firebombs at Israeli soldiers.
Tatour published her poem in October 2015 during a spate of deadly Palestinian stabbing, shooting and ramming attacks on Israelis. She was arrested a few days later, and prosecutors said her post was a call for violence. She denied this.
Her case became a cause celebre for freedom of speech advocates in Israel and abroad. It drew attention to the advanced technology used by Israeli security agencies to trawl through social media to identify and arrest users suspected of incitement to violence, or of planning attacks.
Tatour said her poem was misunderstood by the Israeli authorities as it was not a call for violence, rather for non-violent struggle.
U.S.-backed negotiations on a Palestinian state in territory Israel captured in a 1967 war have been stalled since 2014.
Tatour was also charged with supporting a terrorist group. Prosecutors said she had expressed support for the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad's call for an uprising.
"I wasn't expecting justice to be done. The case was political from the start, because I am Palestinian and support freedom of speech," she told reporters at the Nazareth Magistrate's Court in northern Israel.
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