'They Try to Break Us': Pro-Palestine Activist Held in Czech Custody as Crackdown Allegations Grow

The pre-trial detention of pro-Palestine activist Youssef Moursi in Prague, Czech Republic, has stretched to six months. The 25-year-old Egyptian student is accused of involvement in a March arson attack on a Czech weapons factory with alleged ties to Israel. Moursi denies any involvement in the attack.

Moursi is a humanities student at Charles University. He is one of 11 people charged with 'terrorism' over the attack, and could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

According to Moursi, armed and masked police smashed down his front door two days after the alleged attack. He spent the first three months of his detention in solitary confinement, according to his lawyer. Today he is allowed one hour outside his cell and 20 minutes on the phone a day, with visits from friends and family every two weeks.

In a statement, Moursi said a psychological front is being waged against them — deliberately trying to break them by putting some in solitary confinement for months, denying visits, blocking correspondence and spreading fear. Holding people in custody and prolonging it again and again without direct evidence, mainly based on a mix of inclinations, activism and racism, is unacceptable, he said.

Moursi and his lawyer, Pavel Cizinsky, believe he has been targeted because of his involvement in pro-Palestine activism in Prague. Cizinsky said part of the evidence against Moursi is that, on the day after the fire, he posted advice on social media for pro-Palestinian activists approached by officers. Cizinsky called this 'ridiculous', saying a Google search gives the same first advice — wait for your lawyer — but written by a pro-Palestinian activist to friends, it becomes evidence of guilt.

Cizinsky also said he faced pressure from the authorities at the start of the investigation not to take the case, and was therefore not present during the initial interrogation and the raid on Moursi's flat. He said there is extraordinary police attention and great resources dedicated to the case, but that Moursi having already spent five months in prison is surely a breach of law.

Under Czech law, the detention of an unconvicted person held before trial must be reviewed by a court every three months. Moursi's detention has so far been reviewed twice, with the court deciding each time that he must stay in prison. It will be reviewed again in early December, and the trial is expected to start within a year. According to lawyers, those detained in the Czech Republic could remain in prison for up to four years without being convicted.

The fire broke out in the early hours of 20 March at LPP Holding, a Czech weapons factory in Pardubice, about 120km east of Prague. No one was injured, but police said the building was destroyed, with damage estimated at hundreds of millions of crowns, or at least four million euros.

A previously unknown pro-Palestinian group called The Earthquake Faction claimed responsibility and posted videos of the fire, saying it targeted LPP Holding for its cooperation with Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons company. In 2023, LPP Holding and Elbit Systems announced a partnership to build drones in the Czech Republic, but on the day of the fire an LPP spokesperson told Czech media the collaboration never happened.

In the weeks following the attack, police launched a manhunt and arrested several foreign nationals, including Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Polish and American citizens. Of the 10 other accused besides Moursi, three are under house arrest in Poland and seven remain behind bars in the Czech Republic.

The case echoes legal battles elsewhere in Europe. In the United Kingdom, Palestine Action activists have been sentenced under terrorism laws, and in Germany five people accused of targeting a site linked to Elbit Systems, Israel's largest weapons maker, are on trial. Over the past two years, Elbit Systems has become a primary target for pro-Palestine activists across Europe.

In Prague, the atmosphere for pro-Palestinian activists has grown increasingly tense. A collective called Prague 4 Palestine Youth stopped organising demonstrations and charity events after police investigations into dozens of its members in the months following the attack. Rue, a 25-year-old Czech activist who requested anonymity, said friends of those detained and fellow activists face interrogations, house raids and indefinite confiscations of their devices.

Nine days after the fire, Rue said, police interrogated them, took them back to their apartment for a house search, kept them awake for more than 24 hours, and left them having panic attacks for a week. Rue was later told they were being treated as a witness; their phone and computer were confiscated and have not been returned. Police confirmed they have arrested and charged suspects of several nationalities and remanded them in custody, adding that, given the gravity of the case and the ongoing investigation into terrorism-related offences, the supervising public prosecutor's office has assumed exclusive authority to release information.