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:

1. The prosecution and detention of the organization’s director were unlawful and arbitrary. The competent authorities should have respected the guarantees of fair trial afforded to him by law, as well as his legally protected privacy. It is unacceptable and unconstitutional to force a trade-off between liberty and privacy. Such actions contradict the government’s stated discourse on reforms and constitute a clear violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which was incorporated into domestic law and published in the Official Gazette in 2023.
2. Advocate Karajah was detained before hearing the testimony of the “complainant,” and in the absence of any written evidence — including the absence of any technical report confirming the authenticity of the posts or linking them to his Facebook account — despite his denial of the content. Multiple reports from platforms specialized in detecting fabricated content confirm that this arrest, prosecution, and trial are part of a broader effort to restrict the work of Advocate Karajah and Lawyers for Justice in defending human rights, particularly since no legal measures have been taken against the individuals or entities responsible for producing the fabricated posts and leading the incitement campaign, including the individual who filed the complaint. The organization had already submitted a formal memo to the Attorney General detailing the incitement campaign.
3. The organization reiterates the necessity of respecting the Palestinian Basic Law and the Criminal Procedure Law, as well as ensuring full adherence to fair-trial guarantees and the provisions of the ICCPR, and maintaining unwavering commitment to the rule of law, the principle of fair adversarial process, and the public interest.
4. There is a pressing need to amend the Cybercrimes Law No. 10 of 2018 in accordance with the observations and recommendations submitted by civil-society organizations, and to complete the work of the committee formed by the Council of Ministers in its session of 26 April 2024 to revise the law in line with the protection of rights and public freedoms, ensuring that its application does not constitute a violation of individual or institutional privacy.
5. The neutrality of the official media must be safeguarded, and it should not be used as a platform for incitement against human-rights defenders.
6. The organization appreciates the support expressed by the General Assembly of the Palestinian Bar Association, human-rights defenders, activists, and social movements in standing with Advocate Karajah. The organization stresses that the acts of assault and verbal aggression targeting lawyers within the courthouse cannot go unpunished and must be addressed through legal action.
7. The organization commends the decision of the Ramallah Magistrate Court to release Advocate Karajah, considering it consistent with the principles of the law and reflective of judicial independence.
8. The organization values the statements and positions issued by international human-rights institutions that condemned this arrest, expressed solidarity with Advocate Karajah, and called for his immediate release.
9. Finally, Lawyers for Justice calls for continued support for the organization and its director, Advocate Mohannad Karajah, particularly as the prosecution continues, effectively criminalizing legal and human-rights work. The trial has been adjourned to 11 November 2025 for the Public Prosecution to present its evidence.

Lawyers for Justice
Issued on 02 November 2025