Small Win: Poet Dareen Tatour Will Serve House Arrest at Home in Reineh

On July 18, Dareen Tatour’s hearing — to have her house arrest shifted from being alone outside Tel Aviv to her own village outside Nazareth — was postponed:

But today word comes from Yoav Haifawi that “the prosecution agreed that Dareen will return to Reineh – still under house arrest. We wait final decision from the court and expect Dareen to be home by July 25. Solidarity yields results!”

She has been living in an apartment in Kiryat One, outside Tel Aviv, since October, and only allowed a special 48-hour pass to visit her family on the first day of Eid, described by Mondoweiss in “A Visit to Dareen Tatour.”

Her family rented her the Kiryat One apartment after she was ordered by the court to leave her village. Tatour also wears an ankle monitor.

As an editorial in Haaretz calling for Tatour’s release notes, Tatour was arrested last October “at a predawn raid of her home by a large number of police officers, like some dangerous criminal.”

The dangerous crime? A poem that Tatour posted on Facebook, called Qawem ya sha’abi, qawemhum,” translated by poet Tariq Al-Haydar as “Resist, My People, Resist Them.” The poem allegedy incites violence.

Over 150 writers, poets, translators, editors, artists, public intellectuals, and cutural workers — including Alice Walker, Naomi Klein, and Jacqueline Woodson — have signed a petition urging Tatour’s release. The petition, at Jewish Voice for Peace, is still open to signatories.

You can find more translations of her poetry here.