Palestinian Activist Granted Bail and Released

Palestinian activist Issa Amro, whose arrest and detention have inflamed passions throughout the Palestinian Authority for the past two weeks, was granted bail and released from jail on Sunday. He had been arrested a week before, charged with the crime of criticizing the president. Amro was also among the first to be jailed under PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s cyber-crimes law which allows citizens to be arrested if they criticize the regime via the Internet. Reporters and journalists were not allowed to attend the hearing for Amro which was secretly held. Once released, Amro spoke out against the cyber-crimes law, issuing a public plea to President Abbas to freeze the statute. Interestingly, Amro is in the position of having simultaneously granted bail by both Palestinian and Israeli courts.