{"id":25449,"date":"2016-05-20T01:17:55","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T01:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/israel-frees-palestinian-journalist-mohammed-al\/"},"modified":"2016-05-20T01:17:28","modified_gmt":"2016-05-20T01:17:28","slug":"israel-frees-palestinian-journalist-mohammed-al","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/israel-frees-palestinian-journalist-mohammed-al\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel frees Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Mohammed al-Qeeq spent 94 days on hunger strike before reaching deal with Israeli officials in February for his release.}<\/p>\n

Israel has released a Palestinian activist and journalist who spent three months on hunger strike after being held without trial or charge since November.<\/p>\n

Mohammed al-Qeeq, 33, went on hunger strike for 94 days in protest against his treatment by Israeli authorities, before reaching a deal with Israel in February securing his release.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett, reporting from Ramallah, said Qeeq now had a stronger physical appearance and was walking unaided after his release.<\/p>\n

“At one point his wife was saying he was close to death […] Since then, his health has been recovering,” he said.<\/p>\n

“He spoke of having secured a victory through his hunder strike, and talked of the fragility that his release showed in the Israeli occupation.”<\/p>\n

Four days after he was arrested on November 21, 2015, Qeeq decided to begin his strike.<\/p>\n

He demanded the Israeli military either charge or release him from the military detention centre where he was being held.<\/p>\n

Israel had accused Qeeq of inciting violence and having links to Hamas, the Palestinian faction which rules the GazaStrip.<\/p>\n

However, any intelligence supporting the accusations are classified, and the allegations were never put forward in the form of criminal charges.<\/p>\n

Palestinians argue he was persecuted for expressing his opinion.
\nQeeq worked as a news reporter for the Saudi-owned TV network Al Majd.<\/p>\n

Until his release on Thursday, he was one of 750 Palestinians – including five journalists – being held in Israeli prisons under administrative detention.<\/p>\n

The controversial policy permits Palestinians to be held for renewable six-month periods without charge or trial for an indefinite period.<\/p>\n

Qeeq had previously been jailed on three occasions for alleged activities linking him to Hamas.<\/p>\n

In 2003, he spent a month in prison and the following year he was jailed for 13 months.<\/p>\n

In 2008, Qeeq was jailed for 16 months on charges relating to his activities on the student council at Birzeit University.<\/p>\n

At least 70 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons are on hunger strike.<\/p>\n

\"Some<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Mohammed al-Qeeq spent 94 days on hunger strike before reaching deal with Israeli officials in February for his release.} Israel has released a Palestinian activist and journalist who spent three months on hunger strike after being held without trial or charge since November. Mohammed al-Qeeq, 33, went on hunger strike for 94 days in protest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-25449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25449"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=25449"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=25449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}