On Wednesday, June 2 at 1 pm, Jafar Farah, the director of the Mossawa Center, the Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel, was detained at Rambam Hospital in Haifa while trying to visit foreign activists wounded during the Israeli Army’s raid on the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza.

A group including Mr. Farah, representatives to the Haifa Municipality and other supporters went to the hospital to check on the conditions of the activists and offer assistance. After passing through initial hospital security, the group was stopped and denied entrance by police placed around the patients, who are under arrest and under constant surveillance. When Mr. Farah asked why the group was not allowed to see the patients and requested to see official paperwork allowing the police to prevent visitors, an argument ensued and Mr. Farah was detained to the police station within the hospital. There, two officers collaborated on the police report charging Mr. Farah with threatening a police officer. Mr. Farah is currently in the Haifa police station, and has yet to be charged.

The Mossawa Center works to promote civil and human rights for the Arab minority in Israel by utilizing advocacy and capacity building methods to change the social and political status of the Arab minority in an attempt to gain minority recognition and rights, without sacrificing their national and cultural identity. The Mossawa Center cooperates with other NGO's, local Arab councils, elected representatives of civil society, international and local human rights organizations, and embassies in an effort to achieve its set goals and establish a solid networking arena.