'I didn't feel alone during detention'

Abstract

A black flag flies over a house in the Galilee village of Dir Hanna. It is here that poet Shafiq Habib has been spending 24 hours a day under house arrest until legal procedures against him are finalised. Habib has erected the flag in mourning for the death of freedom of expression in Israel, for although it is not unusualfor Palestinian writers in the occupied territories to be detained and for the written word to be censored and banned, no legal steps have so far been taken by the Israeli authorities against an author inside the green line. His arrest and detention appear to set a dangerous legal precedent.