GENEVA, March 28, 2018 (WAFA) - A legal and media campaign will be launched to demand the release of Nael Barghouti, 61, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner in the Israeli jails, who has already spent more than 37 years in prison, the European Coalition for Palestinian Prisoners‘ Right said on Wednesday.
“Following the continued arbitrary detention of Barghouthi for 37 years now, it is high time that something is done to avoid renewal of his detention without any new legal justification,” added the Geneva-based organization.
Barghouti’s case is expected to receive media, popular and international attention, with the organization planning to showcase his arbitrary detention in Arabic, English and French. European Coalition also intends to address the UN Special Rapporteur on Arbitrary Detention regarding Barghouti’s case, while also communicating with parliamentarians and international human rights organizations and bodies to pressure the Israeli authorities to release him.
The campaign will also include submitting a formal complaint to the UN rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories regarding arbitrary arrests, which are carried out against released prisoners as well.
Previously, Barghouti had spent 33 years in Israeli jails before being released in the Egypt-brokered prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel in October 2011.
The Israeli authorities arrested Barghouthi again in June 2014, along with 60 other Palestinian prisoners who were released in the prisoner exchange deal, sentencing him to 30 months in prison. He ended his sentence on December 17, 2016. However, on 22 February 2017, the Israeli Military Court of Ofer re-sentenced Barghouthi as per its initial verdict prior to the exchange deal, which was a life imprisonment and 18 years.
Barghouti family asked the European Coalition to pressure the Israeli authorities to release him and end his arbitrary detention. His family explained that the decision of the Israeli Military Court to renew his previous sentence was a political decision par excellence, which came after a series of delays in pronouncing his sentence.
The Barghouti family considered the sudden decision to resentence him as unjust, especially that the prisoner had been subjected to a house arrest after his release in 2011.
Re-arresting ex-prisoners released in a prisoner exchange deal is a political matter for which the Israeli government is responsible. The court does not have any legal grounds for Barghouti’s continued detention, rather its decision to restore the previous verdict is arbitrary and legally baseless.
The European Coalition for Palestinian Prisoners‘ Rights called on the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Egyptian Government—who respectively supervised and brokered the 2011 exchange deal—to pressure the Israeli authorities and demand the release of Barghouti and other prisoners released as part of the deal.
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