Police release detained journalist Abed Abou Shahadeh

Police release journalist Abed Abou Shahadeh, who was detained early Wednesday on suspicion of contact with a foreign agent after he traveled to Qatar ahead of the October 27 Knesset election and interviewed escaped former MK Azmi Bishara.

The Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court later Wednesday ordered that Abou Shahadeh be kept in custody until today, instead of for the eight days requested by police. After police decided not to challenge the release, a second remand hearing scheduled for this morning was canceled, as was a planned left-wing protest outside the courthouse.

Abou Shahadeh is head of the podcast department at the Arab48 news site and host of its flagship podcast Al-Midan. He also sits on Jaffa’s Islamic Council and previously sat on the Tel Aviv-Jaffa city council as a representative for Yafa, a municipal alliance of binational communist party Hadash and Palestinian nationalist party Balad, two of the three factions that make up the Joint List.

He is the cousin of Balad chief Sami Abou Shahadeh, who was placed at no. 3 on the Joint List candidate slate in the election but dropped out after the Central Elections Committee voted to disqualify him for purported support for armed conflict against Israel, and the Supreme Court indicated it would uphold the ban.

Several dozen people have gathered at the headquarters of the League for the Arabs of Jaffa to greet the journalist, including Sami Abou Shahadeh and former Balad MK Jamal Zahalka, who took over the party after Bishara fled and now leads the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, an umbrella group.

Bishara fled Israel in 2007 amid suspicions that he assisted Hezbollah in the previous year’s Lebanon war.