Dareen Tatour’s Appeal Partially Accepted: Poem Is Not a Crime

21 Mag, 2019 Fonte: - Arablit

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Thursday’s battle in Nazareth District Court was a victory for artistic expression but not for free speech, when charges against Dareen Tatour’s poem “Resist, My People, Resist Them” were overturned, but those for her Facebook posts were upheld:

#DareenTatour trial: the #Resist poem was aqcuited from all charges… Dareen’s rediculous conviction for facebook posts upheld by the court as well as her 5 months imprisonment pic.twitter.com/LA8NjC7sCK

— Yoav Haifawi (@FreeHaifa) May 16, 2019

The ruling came, May 16, in the district court in Nazareth. Shortly after winning the appeal, Tatour re-posted the poem on Facebook.

The ruling came three and half years after her ordeal began, in October 2015. What followed was five months which Tatour spent in jail, two and a half years of which she was under house arrest, and the remainder with a conviction hanging over her.

On Tatour’s website, which is kept up by activists and supporters, they write of the ruling: “In an absurd twist they upheld the charges related to 2 “non-poetic” Facebook posts – and justified her imprisonment…”

Also:

It is a victory to the freedom of the arts – as the wide solidarity – locally and internationally – taught the Israeli oppressive apparatus that there is a high price to pay for imprisoning a poet for his poems….

Yet it is in no way vindication of the fake “Israeli Democracy” – as it still shows how any Palestinian can be persecuted and imprisoned for the slightest expression of verbal opposition to the crimes of the occupation.

Tatour continues to produce art. Last winter, her photo exhibition “I, Prisoner No. 9022438” opened at the Arabic-Hebrew ‎Saraya ‎Theater in ‎Jaffa, and Tatour also has a show — “I, Dareen Tatour” — co-written with theatre artist Einat Weizman.

* Source:  Arablit

Image:

The Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour

By Danielle Alma Ravitzki

[CC BY-SA 4.0  (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

Links

The Poem

Resist, My People, Resist Them

(Qawim ya sha’abi, qawimhum)

Resist, my people, resist them.

In Jerusalem, I dressed my wounds and breathed my sorrows

And carried the soul in my palm

For an Arab Palestine.

I will not succumb to the “peaceful solution,”

Never lower my flags

Until I evict them from my land.

I cast them aside for a coming time.

Resist, my people, resist them.

Resist the settler’s robbery

And follow the caravan of martyrs.

Shred the disgraceful constitution

Which imposed degradation and humiliation

And deterred us from restoring justice.

They burned blameless children;

As for Hadil, they sniped her in public,

Killed her in broad daylight.

Resist, my people, resist them.

Resist the colonialist’s onslaught.

Pay no mind to his agents among us

Who chain us with the peaceful illusion.

Do not fear doubtful tongues;

The truth in your heart is stronger,

As long as you resist in a land

That has lived through raids and victory.

So Ali called from his grave:

Resist, my rebellious people.

Write me as prose on the agarwood;

My remains have you as a response.

Resist, my people, resist them.

Resist, my people, resist them.

‘Resist, My People, Resist Them’

English Translation

Video

Read Also:

Free at last – Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour finally released by Israelis

Palestinian Poet Convicted on Incitement…for Poem

‘It Was Another Year’s September’

More work by Dareen Tatour in translation:

‘Rebellion of Silence’: New Work by Poet-on-trial Dareen Tatour

‘A Poet’s Hallucinations,’ by Dareen Tatour

A New Translation of Palestinian Poet Dareen Tatour’s ‘I… Who Am I?’

‘A Poet Behind Bars’: A New Poem from Dareen Tatour

New Poems by Dareen Tatour, Under House Arrest in Israel

3 Poems translated

Video:

Dareen Tatour reading ‘A Poet’s Hallucinations – Arabic & English

Dareen’s Story