Police arrest man for posting 'good morning' on Facebook

pulse-ghana admin

October 24, 2017 3:26 PM

Halawim Halawi posted his well meant good morning while standing by a bulldozer. Unfortunately, Facebook’s automatic translation software interpreted the post to mean “attack them” in Hebrew and “hurt them” in English.

Israeli police arrested a man in the West Bank after he wrote “good morning” in Arabic on Facebook and the software mistranslated his words as “attack them”.

According sky news report, the Palestinian builder, Halawim Halawi had posted the words with a photo of himself in the Israeli settlement of Beitar Ilit where he works.

Unfortunately, Facebook’s automatic translation software interpreted the post to mean “attack them” in Hebrew and “hurt them” in English, according to Haaretz.

The development sparked fear and panic among the public and Israeli police were informed of the message; leading to his arrest.

The police also became more suspicious because he was standing next to a bulldozer. Such vehicles have been used in terror attacks and officers thought he was threatening to carry out such an attack.

Mr Halawi was arrested and then questioned on suspicion of incitement.

Fortunately, police realised they had made a mistake and released him a few hours later.

It was unclear how such a translation error could have been made as there are no apparent similarities between the Arabic expression used for “good morning” and the phrases in Hebrew or English.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri told the AFP news agency that “a few days ago, a Palestinian was detained for questioning on suspicion of incitement through his Facebook page”.

She said he was “immediately released” after the suspicions turned out to be false.

Haaretz reported that the Facebook post has since been deleted.

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