127. Release jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti
Can the cultural voices shift the course of politics? I believe the history has many such incidents.
Known as Palestine’s Nelson Mandela, Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, 66, has been in prison for more than 23 years and subjected to brutal abuse.
Legal experts have described it as a flawed trial. Also, a body that represents parliaments around the world - the Inter-Parliamentary Union – undertook their own assessment and concluded it was deeply flawed.
An elected parliamentarian at the time of his arrest, he remains the most popular Palestinian leader, consistently topping polls as the people’s choice to lead.
Barghouti, a senior leader of President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah group, is serving five life sentences in Israeli prisons on alleged charges related to attacks during the second Intifada, which lasted from 2000 to 2005.
Israel has been persistently refusing to release him. It was expected that in the recent prisoner swap that followed an October ceasefire in the Gaza war, he will be out of prison.
It didn’t happen.
He doesn’t pose a threat to Israel’s security but it feels that he may wield in building unity and a momentum to a two state-solution.
Now an international campaign to free Barghouti is gathering pace.
More than 200 leading cultural figures have come together to call for the release of Barghouti.
They have, in an open letter, called on the United Nations to make efforts.
The full statement reads: “We express our grave concern at the continuing imprisonment of Marwan Barghouti, his violent mistreatment and denial of legal rights whilst imprisoned. We call upon the United Nations and the governments of the world to actively seek the release of Marwan Barghouti from Israeli prison.”
The prestigious and diverse group calling for his release includes writers Margaret Atwood, Philip Pullman, Zadie Smith and Annie Ernaux; actors Sir Ian McKellen, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, Josh O’Connor and Mark Ruffalo, and the broadcaster and former footballer Gary Lineker.
It also includes the musicians Sting, Paul Simon, Brian Eno and Annie Lennox, as well as actor and presenter Stephen Fry and the British cookery writer and presenter Delia Smith.
Others on the list are director Sir Richard Eyre, artist Ai Weiwei, and billionaire entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson.
At this scale such a cultural movement has been happening after a long time.
We saw this kind of movement when Nelson Mandela was in jail.
May be a coincidence that Mandela himself said in 2002: “What is happening to Barghouti is the same as what happened to me.”
There is also concern that the Israeli government is willing to pass new laws that will allow Israel to impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners, a law that could include Barghouti.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is likely to resist his release unless there is strong pressure from the US.
The world, at this crucial stage in history, should not forget that Marwan Barghouti is the best hope to the stalled mission of creating a Palestinian state.