"It is hard to conceal the political nature of Salah's trial, however. Salah, the head of the extra-parliamentary Islamic movement, has been identified by the security apparatus as a threat to the ideology of the state and was the target of several physical assaults by policemen, and was even shot in October 2000. Some of his movement's nongovernmental organizations were closed by military orders and their newspaper was subject to temporary closure orders. And he has been repeatedly demonized in the Israeli media for more than a
decade." (thanks Nimer)