Inside Higher Ed: Israel Releases Detained Akron Scholar
A University of Akron geographer who had been informally accused of spying for Hezbollah in Israel was released Sunday without any charges being filed.
Ghazi Falah, an associate professor in the department of geography and planning at Akron, holds joint Israeli and Canadian citizenship but works in the United States on a permanent visa. He had been visiting his ailing mother in Israel, and on July 8, he was taking photographs at a resort near the Lebanese border when Israeli authorities detained him. He was held for more than two weeks before Israeli officials gave any indication of why he had been held.
Last week, they told his lawyers that they believed he had been taking pictures of Israeli installations along the border for intelligence purposes, a spokeswoman for the Israeli Consulate General in Philadelphia told the Associated Press. No formal charges were ever filed, and he was never brought before a judge. His lawyers insisted that he had been taking the photographs for academic purposes, an argument also made by a group of scholars who have campaigned and petitioned for his release.
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