Mahmoud Muna and Ahmad Muna, the co-owners of the Educational Bookshop in East Jerusalem who were arrested by Israeli police during a raid of the bookstore on February 9, were released on Tuesday. They are under house arrest for five days, and have been ordered not to set foot in their bookstore for 20 days.
The two Palestinian booksellers were initially cited by police for selling books that contain “incitement and support for terrorism,” but that charge was later changed to “behavior that might endanger public safety." Educational Bookshop, founded in 1984 by Mahmoud Muna’s father, specializes in English-language and Arabic books on the conflict between Israel and Palestine and books on the history of Jerusalem.
The detention of the booksellers, who are uncle and nephew, sparked a wave of public outrage both in the U.S. and abroad. According to the Times of Israel, protesters gathered outside the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court during a hearing on Monday over their detention, and the British and German ambassadors condemned the arrests.
That same day, a group that described itself as “well-established writers and poets, cultural actors, cultural institutions, and booksellers in Israel” signed an open letter written in both Hebrew and English, praising Educational Bookshop and condemning the attack. The letter urged “people of letters and intellectuals, writers and poets, book sellers, to come to Jerusalem, stand by the Educational Bookshop and express their support for free culture, dialogue between nations, and education for tolerance and humanism as the only tool to resolve the conflict.”
On Monday, Publishers for Palestine issued a public statement condemning the “arrest, detention, and persecution” of the two booksellers and the “ransacking” of the bookstore, calling it an act that perpetuates “Israel’s practice of cultural erasure.” Saqi Books, Mahmoud Muna’s U.K. publisher, noted that all books sold inside the Educational Bookshop are imports that must “pass inspection by Israeli authorities” before being stocked, with Saqi publisher Lynn Gaspard calling the arrests “a grim moment for culture and freedom when people are arrested for selling books and their books are sieved.”
The American Booksellers Association, via the American Booksellers for Free Expression (ABFE), also offered its support for the Munas. "[ABFE] stands with the Educational Bookshop in East Jerusalem and calls for the immediate release of the Palestinian booksellers Ahmad and Mahmoud Muna,” the group said in a statement. “Erosion of the right to read anywhere threatens the right to read everywhere."
Interlink Publishing, which describes itself as the only Palestinian-American publishing house, issued its own statement on social media, condemning the actions of the Israeli police and noting that Educational Bookshop has carried Interlink titles since the company was founded in 1987, calling the store Interlink’s “key bookseller in Jerusalem.” The press also disclosed that one of the books seized in the raid was one of its own: Love Wins: Palestinian Perseverance Behind Walls (2013), a collection of photographs by Canadian Afzal Huda.
“We are outraged by this cowardly act on the part of the Israeli police, which tramples on peoples’ rights of freedom of speech and freedom to read,” Interlink wrote in its statement. “Show your support of Mahmoud and Ahmad Muna by calling your elected representative and demanding that they put pressure on the Israeli government to stop the banning of books and the harassment of bookshop owners.”
This story has been updated with further information.
