Bassem Tamimi is a Palestinian grassroots activist and an organiser of protests against Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank.
He was convicted by an Israeli military court in 2012 (after being arrested in 2011) for “sending people to throw stones, and holding a march without a permit”.
In his West Bank village Nabi Salih, Tamimi organizes weekly demonstrations against Israeli settlement. He has been arrested by the Israeli authorities over a dozen times, at one point spending more than three years in administrative detention without trial. Tamimi has said that he advocates grassroots, nonviolent resistance, but has also said that stone-throwing is an important symbol of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation.
His 2011 arrest drew international attention, with the European Union describing him as a human rights defender, and Amnesty International designating him a prisoner of conscience. He was arrested again in October 2012 for a demonstration in a supermarket, but released in early 2013.
He is the father of Ahed Tamimi, who was sentenced to eight months in prison under a plea bargain in 2018.