Nadera SHALHOUB-KEVORKIAN
Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian was arrested by Israeli forces in April and held for a day, following comments she made on a podcast criticising Israeli oppression of Palestinians and stating that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
On 18 April 2024, Israeli police arrested Shalhoub-Kevorkian at her house in East Jerusalem, also confiscating books and posters. During her detention she was strip-searched, handcuffed tightly, denied access to food, water, and medicine for hours, and held in a cold cell without adequate clothing or blankets. She was interrogated about her academic work on suspicion of ‘offences’ including ‘incitement of terrorism, violence, and racism.’
Shalhoub-Kevorkian was released the following day, on condition that she attend an interrogation and sign a financial guarantee, after the court concluded she posed no threat. The police immediately appealed the release decision, claiming that she engaged in ‘serious incitement against the State of Israel by making statements against Zionism and even claiming that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip’. However, the court rejected the appeal due to lack of evidence.
Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s arrest sparked widespread outrage among academics in Israel and the UK, where she teaches. The senior editors of the British Journal of Criminology also published a supportive statement expressing concerns about her detention.
Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian is a prominent Palestinian professor and leading legal and feminist scholar whose work focuses on several areas, including genocide studies, law and society, trauma, criminology, surveillance, and gendered violence. Shalhoub-Kevorkian is the Lawrence D. Biele Chair in Law at the Faculty of Law - Institute of Criminology and the School of Social Work and Public Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Global Chair in Law at Queen Mary University,London. She is also a member of the International Advisory Board of the British Journal of Criminology, from which she received the Radzinowicz Prize in 2017 for her article ‘The Occupation of the Senses: The Prosthetic and Aesthetic of State Terror’. She has authored numerous academic publications, including ‘Security Theology, Surveillance and the Politics of Fear’ (2015), and ‘Incarcerated Childhood and the Politics of Unchilding’ (2019), both published by Cambridge University Press (CUP). She has also co-edited two books, including ‘When Politics are Sacralised: Comparative Perspectives on Religious Claims and Nationalism’, (CUP 2021).