Tel Aviv Tribune Net correspondents
Occupied Jerusalem- Today, Wednesday, the Israeli Public Prosecution officially submitted an indictment to the Israeli Magistrate Court against Sheikh Ikrimah Sabri, the preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the head of the Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem.
The indictment included two items related to speeches delivered by the sheikh in 2022 at two funeral homes for the martyrs Uday al-Tamimi in the Shuafat camp in Jerusalem and Raad Khazem in the Jenin camp in the northern West Bank.
Lawyer Khaled Zabarqa – one of the lawyers assigned to defend Sheikh Sabri – told Tel Aviv Tribune Net that the words presented in the indictment “relate to the status of the martyr in the Islamic religion.”
He stated that the Israeli prosecution considered this to fall within the framework of “supporting terrorism,” calling on the Magistrate’s Court to convict the 86-year-old sheikh.
Urgent | The Israeli Public Prosecution submits an indictment to the Jerusalem Magistrate Court against the sheikh #Ikrima_Sabri Al-Aqsa preacher for allegedly inciting terrorism #Aljazeera live #Palestine pic.twitter.com/lKdUagBqRy
– Tel Aviv Tribune Mubasher (@ajmubasher) June 26, 2024
In his comment on the filing of the indictment, Zabarqa pointed out that extremist Jewish groups have been seeking for years with all their might to criminalize Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, “and the goal of this criminalization is political, because these groups deal with Islamic religious discourse in a confrontational manner on the one hand, and they seek to silence every free voice.” Strong and influential in the issue of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa on the other hand.”
Because Sheikh Sabri’s voice – according to his lawyer Zabarqa – is the voice of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, heard locally and internationally, and because his speech is a scientific, professional, religious, awareness-raising speech that exposes Israeli policies and warns against them, attempts to silence him began years ago.
The attempt to criminalize this voice now comes “because the extremist groups know that the current stage is a pivotal stage in the history of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, and it seems that silencing it has goals related to radical changes in the mosque and the Holy City,” according to the lawyer specializing in Jerusalem issues.
Regarding the next step in the legal process, Zabarqa indicated that the Magistrate Court will set a date to consider the indictment, after which the legal procedures will take place, “but we are not facing real legal procedures, but rather facing political, intellectual and religious persecution procedures by exploiting the legal cover.”
The lawyer describes the filing of the indictment as a “crime,” because it “comes at this dangerous stage against a legal personality of the caliber of His Eminence Sheikh Ikrimah Sabri.”
The Israeli Public Prosecution in Jerusalem filed an indictment against the preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri (85 years old), accusing him of incitement to “terrorism.”
This came after a wave of widespread media and legal incitement by the extremist “Jewish Voice” website, which collected and published evidence against the sheikh.
The site says that the most prominent evidence that… pic.twitter.com/6LNVY3YUGq
– Jerusalem Compass (@alqudsalbawsala) June 26, 2024
The lawyer linked the cases of Sheikhs Raed Salah and Ikrima Sabri by saying that they fall within the framework of intellectual prosecution to silence any voice heard in the issue of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa.
He concluded that any influential voice that carries a real awareness regarding the identity of this country is wanted by the Israeli authorities to suppress it, “because it seeks to erase the identity of Palestine, including its sanctities and geography, and to engineer the awareness of society, and therefore anyone who obstructs its project is considered a danger and must be removed from its path.”
It is noteworthy that Sheikh Ikrima Sabri ascended the pulpit of Al-Aqsa Mosque for the first time to deliver a sermon in 1973, and he continues to play this role for the 51st year in a row, but his sermons and words did not please the occupation, so they began persecuting him in 2000 with the outbreak of the second intifada.
From then until today, he has been subjected to summons, arrest, and investigation, in addition to the penalties of deportation from Al-Aqsa Mosque, a travel ban, and the threat of demolition of his existing house in the Al-Sawana neighborhood, close to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.
