Dearborn School Board Member Says He Was Arrested In Israel After Performing A Comedy Show

DEARBORN, MI — A Dearborn Board of Education member and Palestinian-American comedian said he was arrested and questioned by Israeli police in Nazareth after a comedy show.

Amer Zahr said in a social media post captioned "ARRESTED IN PALESTINE FOR JOKES" that the arrest happened after he finished the first of his three comedy shows Friday night in Nazareth.

He said the officers asked him questions such as "am I inciting against Israel," to which he said he responded with "no."

Zahr said he had a lawyer standing outside, but said the officers told him she was not allowed to enter, and you don't get access to a lawyer here.

Moreover, he said the officers told him, "if you incite against Israel, we can detain you for a very long time. It's called administrative detention."

The officers then handed him a document to sign that was written in Hebrew, he said.

"I said, 'I don’t understand Hebrew and I’m a lawyer in America, I shouldn’t sign something I don’t know about,'" Zahr said. "They said, ‘No you need to sign it.’ So I wrote in English, 'I don’t understand Hebrew,' and then I initialed my name on it."

Overall, Zahr said he was detained for roughly an hour and a half before he was released and able to perform his final shows at the Liwan Cultural Cafe in the Old Market of Nazareth.

Zahr believes the officers detained him in the hopes of "killing" the next two shows. But he said the "hundreds of people" who attended the show waited for him to come back.

"When I came back, they [the audience] welcomed me with open arms. They didn't care that they sat around for an hour, and we had a show. And people laughed, and they let out their emotions, and it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced in my life — the steadfastness of the Palestinian people," Zahr said.

Zahr thanked the Dearborn community who reached out to him when they heard the news of his arrest. He called the community "beautiful" and added that they "were doing everything they could to reach out and help."

When learning of his arrest, Michigan Rep. Alabas Farhat, D-Dearborn, called on the U.S. government "to ensure Mr. Zahr’s safety and to check on his well-being as soon as possible and to guarantee his release." He later updated his post and said he hoped for Zahr's safe return home.

Zahr said he is scheduled to perform in Ramallah in the West Bank on Monday.

"We are not going to stop. We're going to keep going, telling our story and telling our truth," he said.