Film review
Thursday 22 April 2021, by Lisa Hajjar
“Being someone’s lawyer entails more than appearing in court and arguing their case passionately. It means being there for them in their daily life. Especially if they are sentenced to prison for political reasons. Given the miserable prison conditions, I could not just say, “Case closed” and drop the client. But in addition to political prisoners, there is the oppression of Palestinians: freedom of speech, freedom of the press. The suppression of student protests. It was all part of my daily workload, beyond the hardcore cases involving armed resistance.”
LEA TSEMEL IS an angry optimistic woman. That is how she describes herself to a journalist on the phone, as she races to the Israeli Supreme Court to appeal two major political cases that she just lost.