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Bedouin teacher sentenced by Israeli court for attempting to join IS

Xinhua, January 7, 2016 Adjust font size:

An Arab Bedouin from southern Israel was sentenced to four years in prison on Thursday for spreading the ideology of the Islamic State (IS) and planning to join the group in Syria.

Mohammad Alkian, a school teacher from a Bedouin village of Hura in southern Israel's Negev Desert, was sentenced by the district court after confessing to the charges filed against him.

The defendant, according to the indictment, preached in sermons at mosques, urging his listeners to join the group, which was declared an illegal organization by Israeli authorities in 2014, and handed out written materials promoting the agenda of the organization.

Furthermore, Alkian was accused of combining messages supporting IS in his school lessons and also planned to join the group himself in Syria with two others, including a 15-year-old boy, according to the indictment.

Several dozens of Arab Israelis have been indicted in the past couple of years for allegedly attempting to leave Israel and join the IS in Syria.

Bedouin Arabs are a community of Arab desert dwellers residing mostly in the southern Israeli Negev Desert. Most of the Bedouin villages, erected before the establishment of Israel in 1948, remain unrecognized by the state and suffer from lack of infrastructure and resources. Endit