Deported Palestinian American Journalist Says Swiss Ministry Of Defense Agents Tried To Interrogate Him

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While Palestinian American journalist Ali Abunimah was arbitrarily detained for around two days prior to deportation, he says agents from the Swiss Ministry of Defense attempted to interrogate him. It was the moment when he most feared that his detention could become a prolonged ordeal. 

“I thought about [WikiLeaks founder] Julian Assange at that moment,” Abunimah shared. “I thought they can do anything. They can make up anything. They can frame you.”

Abunimah continued, “The way they’re framing this already about jihadi terrorism and violence against Jews, and now clearly these intelligence agents have been sent to talk to me. And that’s the moment I thought, does anyone know I’m here? I had no idea what was going on outside.” 

Yet as it turned out, by Monday, a global outcry against Switzerland’s attack on a journalist had intensified. Two United Nations human rights officials, Amnesty International Europe, and Euro-Med Monitor, which is based in Switzerland, had all spoken out. Abunimah was finally released and allowed to fly home to Chicago.  

Abunimah is the executive director and co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, an independent not-for-profit media organization focused on promoting Palestinian perspectives. He has written the books “One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse” (2006) and “The Battle for Justice In Palestine” (2014). He was in Switzerland for several speaking engagements.

Swiss police in Zurich arrested Abunimah on Saturday, January 25, in order to block him from delivering a lecture at an event organized by the Palestine Committee of Zurich. 

Prior to that, Never Again Is Now (NAIN) Switzerland, a pro-Israel group, mounted a campaign of harassment and intimidation in the Swiss news media that led a school to revoke access to their building for a Saturday event. NAIN also successfully lobbied the Zurich police to issue a retroactive ban against an international journalist, despite the fact that Swiss immigration had stamped his passport and permitted him to enter the country. 

Arriving In Switzerland

For a broadcast that aired on the Electronic Intifada’s YouTube channel on January 28, Abunimah extensively recounted what happened to him from the time that he arrived in Zurich to the time that authorities brought him in handcuffs to the Zurich airport to ensure that he left Switzerland.

Abunimah had been spuriously banned from Germany and the wider Schengen Area, which includes Switzerland. But through a lawyer in Germany, he was able to have that ban lifted before traveling to Switzerland for a few speaking events. Nevertheless, ahead of his arrival, he retained a lawyer named Dina Raewel. 

At border control, on Friday, January 24, Abunimah immediately “could tell there was something out of the ordinary.” The officer checking his passport looked at it for several minutes before requesting that Abunimah wait and answer some questions.

Abunimah was taken to an area in the back and told there was something in the computer that they needed to check. That they were reviewing the Schengen Area information system made Abunimah think the hold up was linked to the German ban. 

Yet that was where the peculiarities ended, according to Abunimah. Border control asked when he was leaving the country. They did not ask why he was visiting, and he was permitted to enter Switzerland.

Around 8 p.m., Abunimah and local activists who he planned to spend time with throughout the weekend noticed an alarming article from a major Swiss newspaper, Neue Zürcher Zeitung. The headline said, “Once again, a radical Islamist is scheduled to perform in the Central Laundry of Zurich. The Cantonal police are requesting an entry ban.”

It contained an inflammatory quote from Thomas Patzko, a board member of NAIN Switzerland. “Abunimah and his platform are a mouthpiece for Hamas,” declared Patzko. The article mentioned that NAIN had submitted a request to the Swiss Federal Office of Police asking for a ban and that request was granted. 

The newspaper quoted Mario Fehr, the head of Zurich’s Department of Security, who slanderously stated, “We do not want an Islamist Jew-hater who calls for violence in Switzerland.”

Police In Civilian Clothing Abduct A Journalist

An entry ban is only to be obtained if a person poses some danger to the internal or external security of Switzerland. Abunimah wondered if he was suddenly a fugitive, however, border control had allowed him to enter the country. 

The following day, on Saturday, January 25, Abunimah recalled how organizers had to move their previously scheduled event to the rooftop of an old post office building in Zurich. He learned that the federal police had visited the home of one of the activists involved in the event. They made it clear that authorities did not want Abunimah to speak. 

Not long after, according to Abunimah, he was walking under a foot bridge a burly gentleman with a ponytail grabbed him. He thought he was being mugged and tried to pull away. Then several more individuals snatched him and claimed to be police. But they were not in police uniforms. An activist who was with Abunimah, and witnessed the incident, was urged to contact Abunimah’s lawyer Dina Raewel. 

The Zurich police pushed Abunimah against the wall. He said the officers handcuffed him while he was still wearing his backpack. That meant his arms were stretched behind his back, which was very uncomfortable. He was then taken to an Audi station wagon that was unmarked. He asked, “Why are you abducting me?” And the officers insisted that he be quiet, and they would explain what was happening at the station. 

Abunimah was taken to a center in Zurich that had both a police station and a prison compound. He was strip-searched, and only permitted to access his cellphone to provide the name of his lawyer and her phone number. They contacted Raewel, and she eventually arrived for a hearing on Saturday, where the accusation against him was presented in a room that had a divider.

'Due To The Current Events In The Gaza Strip'

The hearing was led by one of the officers who had abducted Abunimah, and he was informed that the proceeding had to be in German. Or the police could offer him a translator. Abunimah could speak English or Arabic. They claimed since it was the weekend it was harder for them to find an English translator. They had him speak through an Arabic translator. 

As Abunimah recounted, he answered some of their questions but not all of them. His lawyer was there the whole time to advise him on what he could say to police.

Documents in German were presented. Abunimah said that his lawyer was allowed to read them but could not take copies. They contained the following accusation, which he translated:

Due to the current events in the Gaza Strip, there is an increased risk of radicalization and violent extremist or terrorist attacks as was already manifested in an attack on a Jew by a jihadist-motivated lone perpetrator in March 2024. 

“For that reason,” Abunimah added, “on 24 January 2025, the issuing authority issued an entry ban against the person in order to safeguard the internal and external security of Switzerland. And that this ban [had] been advertised in the national automated police search system by the responsible authority.” 

Typically, an individual would be afforded due process and granted the opportunity to challenge the enforcement of a ban. The police, however, had determined that the ban could not be “postponed because waiting would result in predominant disadvantages, and therefore, imminent danger.”

“I could see many of my tweets quoted,” Abunimah recalled. “These were cited as evidence that my presence in Switzerland would be a grave imminent risk of inciting jihadist terrorism.”

The Frame-Up: Swiss Ministry Of National Defense Agents Meet With Abunimah

Abunimah was never charged with a crime, and his lawyer attempted to secure his deportation before Monday, January 27. The police insisted that he had to remain in arbitrary detention, and while he was in prison, they made Abunimah wear a prison uniform and assigned him to a cell with a young, Moroccan asylum seeker who was arrested for a petty offense. 

On Sunday morning, a prison guard took Abunimah for what he claimed was an appointment with police. Abunimah said that a man greeted him in Arabic, and he thought this person might be an Arabic translator. When he requested that his lawyer be present and they denied that request. “We’re from the Swiss Ministry of National Defense.” 

The intelligence agents attempted what Abunimah recognized as a “good cop, bad cop” routine, thinking he would open up to the Egyptian who could speak Arabic. He insisted that he had “nothing to do with the Swiss Ministry of National Defense,” and it was improper for them to attempt to talk with him without his lawyer. 

Abunimah was not about to fall for this act. He told them, “Do you think that by bringing some Arab I’m going to think you’re my friend and we’re going to sit down and have a friendly chat?” He turned and demanded to be returned to his cell. 

At this moment, Abunimah was worried this could be more serious than he imagined. He thought of Assange, and on his way back to his cell, he found a slit to a “control room.” He yelled for someone to allow him to speak to his lawyer and even found a bell that he could ring. What they offered was ridiculous. Abunimah could send a letter in the mail to his lawyer if he had their address. It would obviously be days before it arrived. 

Abunimah refused each meal that was offered. “Until I can exercise my rights, I will not accept any food,” he told one guard. He skipped eight meals until he knew for certain they would allow him to leave the prison. It was the “only time” that Abunimah “felt powerful,” when he “could say no to them.” 

Meeting with his lawyer in the morning on Monday, January 27, “tears of relief” arrived as officers confirmed that Abunimah could go home. “All that feeling of isolation washed away in that moment.”

Then he learned of the media attention that his arbitrary detention had received. He believed that spooked the Swiss authorities. “Solidarity really made a difference.”

By 2 p.m., Abunimah was driven to the airport in handcuffs in a “little cage.” He was placed in a holding cell at the Zurich airport until officers could escort him to his plane. His cellphone was returned at the gate, but several of his items were not given back to him before his departure.

Abunimah returned home just as Palestinians finally returned to northern Gaza after being forced out by the Israeli military's assault more than 400 days ago.

He emphasized that the police had claimed that he committed an offense against Swiss law without ever describing any specifics. He demanded during his hearing to know what law he had broken, but his effort proved futile.

“I had arrived on Friday afternoon. I had taken a walk in the old city of Zurich at sunset, which was beautiful. I bought some Swiss chocolate. I went to the Victorinox shop and bought a small Swiss army knife. The next morning I ate raclette." And then he went on a walk and police abducted him.

“So all of the things that I had actually done in Switzerland were probably among the most stereotypically Swiss things possible, and I was not aware that chocolate or Swiss army knives or raclette had at that time been outlawed,” Abunimah wryly concluded.