Israeli police have raided the leading Palestinian bookshop in East Jerusalem for the second time in a month, detaining one of its owners for several hours and seizing some of its stock.
The deputy state attorney’s office had warned police that they overstepped their authority with the first raid on the shop in February. Officers again arrived at the Educational Bookshop without a warrant on Tuesday morning, staff said.
They searched stock using Google Translate, confiscated about 50 books and arrested one of the owners, 61-year-old Imad Muna, his brother Morad Muna told the Guardian.
“They chose books by the cover, taking books that had a Palestinian flag, or just the word Palestine in the title,” Muna said. “They were using Google Translate and took photos to send to their bosses.”
The confiscated books included titles on the work of British artist Banksy, and others by the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé and the US academic Noam Chomsky. After taking them, the police locked the shop and left with the key, taking Imad Muna to a nearby police station before releasing him without charge in the afternoon.
In February, Imad’s son Ahmed Muna, 33, and another brother, Mahmoud Muna, 41, were detained for two days, then held under house arrest for five days, but have not been charged. Police cited a children’s colouring book as evidence of incitement to terrorism in the shop.
Rights groups and leading authors, intellectuals and diplomats warned at the time that targeting the shop appeared designed to create a “culture of fear” among Palestinians.
All prosecutions relating to freedom of speech have to be approved by the attorney general’s office. However, police had not sought permission to open an investigation, search the Educational Bookstore or detain its staff.
After the February arrests, prosecutors met police officers to ensure “such incidents don’t happen again”, the office of the deputy state attorney said in a letter to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel about the case.
Police said they made the second raid after getting a complaint from a man who visited the bookstore on Tuesday morning. The man “stated that he had observed books containing inciting content”, a police spokesperson said in a statement.
Officers detained Imad Muna “to verify his identity and details of the store”, the statement said, and are now reviewing three books seized at the store.
“Based on the findings, a determination will be made on whether to refer the matter to the state attorney’s office for further investigation into the suspected sale of inciting materials,” the statement said.
After Muna was freed on Tuesday afternoon, most books were returned and the shop reopened. The family-owned Educational Bookshop has been at the heart of cultural life in Jerusalem for more than four decades.
Its broad collection of books by Palestinian, Israeli and international authors is popular with residents and tourists, and its cafe hosts regular literary events, including recently the launch of the Pulitzer prize-winning nonfiction book A Day in the Life of Abed Salama by Nathan Thrall.
