Police arrest Israeli Arab party officials

Israeli police on Sunday announced they detained several members of a leading Israeli Arab political party as part of an investigation into the group's financing.

"More than 20 suspects, including officials and activists in the Balad party, among them lawyers and accountants" were detained, police said in a statement.

The arrests were made "on suspicion of fraud in connection with funds received that were used to finance the party's activities," police added.

While the police did not comment on the origins of the finances in question, it said Balad created a mechanism that misrepresented "the origin of millions of shekels" for years through "fraud, illegal registration of corporate documents, forgery and use of false documents."

But Balad, which forms part of a coalition of Israeli Arab parties in parliament known as the Joint List, described the charges as arbitrary, saying it the arrests aimed at "silencing Balad."

"This is a dangerous escalation and another stage in the political persecution of the Arab minority and political movements," the party said in a statement.

Balad added that the police operation prevents them from being "the spearhead in the struggle against repression and discrimination."

Controversies and discrimination

Israel's Arab minority accounts for 17.5 percent of the country's population of 8 million, with a large portion of them supportive of an independent Palestinian state.

The minority group experiences "higher unemployment and poverty rates than their Jewish counterparts" with dozens of Israeli laws found to categorically discriminate against them, according to an EU report.

This is not the first time Balad has come under scrutiny in Israel for alleged actions. Earlier this year, Balad's three members of Knesset, Israel's parliament, met with the surviving relatives of Palestinians who Israeli authorities claimed were killed while carrying out attacks.

The party's founder and then-Knesset member Ami Bishara also fled Israel in 2007 after being accused of advising the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah on where to direct rocket fire during the Israel-Lebanon war the year before.

ls/sms (AFP, EFE)