Public Statement on the Circumstances of the Arrest and Prosecution of Lawyers for Justice and Its Director, Advocate Mohannad Karajah, Based on Fabricated Posts
Since 18 October 2025, Lawyers for Justice has been closely monitoring a deceptive campaign of incitement and defamation launched through fabricated and manipulated posts disseminated by individuals operating within what has become evidently a coordinated and funded effort targeting the organization and its director, Advocate Mohannad Karajah. Over the past two weeks, the campaign has escalated through the actions of virtual actors on social media, who were shown to be operating in coordination with individuals active across multiple geographic locations outside the West Bank and Gaza. These actors work within a unified network that launches synchronized waves of incitement designed to manufacture a false public perception. The organization notes that this coordinated virtual network engages in systematic and directed incitement, relying on the circulation and exchange of inflammatory content via WhatsApp at pre-determined times, without any verification of the authenticity of the material being circulated. During this period, the organization also monitored the identities of individuals and entities that amplified and promoted this content through media outlets in an attempt to legitimize it. This was not surprising to Lawyers for Justice, given that the organization has, throughout its years of legal and human-rights work, been subjected to similar campaigns seeking to incite hostility toward its work. Such campaigns reflect the difficult environment in which a human-rights organization operates, particularly in the face of narratives fueled by hatred and incitement to violence — narratives that have been reinforced by official statements that support and legitimize this harmful pattern rather than confronting it or holding its perpetrators accountable. In this context, the organization notes that on 26 October 2025, while Advocate Mohannad Karajah was returning to Palestine, he was detained for several hours in connection with the incitement campaign targeting him, after his passport was confiscated by Palestinian security forces. He was later released due to the absence of any legal grounds for his detention. Subsequently, on 27 October 2025, Advocate Karajah received — through the Palestinian Bar Association — a notice from the Public Prosecution requesting him to appear regarding a complaint filed by one of the individuals promoting and participating in the fabricated campaign. It must be emphasized that this type of case does not require a personal complaint to initiate proceedings, as the Public Prosecution has the authority to act on its own motion, even assuming the alleged facts were true. Advocate Karajah indeed appeared before the Public Prosecution in Ramallah on 27 October 2025 and briefed the Chief Prosecutor on the alleged facts, supported by findings issued by specialized social-media platforms that verify fabricated content and misinformation. However, the Chief Prosecutor rejected this and asked Advocate Karajah to “cooperate in resolving the issue” by handing over the password to his Facebook account — a request he refused, as it constitutes an unlawful intrusion into his privacy, which is protected by law. The investigation was postponed to Wednesday, 29 October 2025. Due to his refusal to “cooperate” by surrendering his private login credentials, a formal investigation was opened and a 48-hour detention order was issued to “complete the investigation,” despite the fact that the law provides legal tools through which the authenticity of posts can be examined without violating the privacy of Advocate Karajah as a defendant or infringing on his right to a fair trial. Accordingly, Lawyers for Justice affirms the following: Lawyers for JusticeIssued on 02 November 2025