LONDON: The son of renowned Palestinian politician Marwan Barghouti has demanded that the UK government make his release from Israeli prison a central part of its efforts to support a Palestinian state.
Arab Barghouti said his father’s freedom is essential to continue the political process after the UK announced that it would recognize a Palestinian state last year.
“Simply saying ‘we support a two-state solution’ without doing anything about it is deepening the problem, because you are just giving the Palestinian people false hopes,” Arab Barghouti said.
His intervention comes amid a campaign by British MPs from across the political spectrum to secure Marwan Barghouti’s release.
He has been in prison for 22 years after being convicted of five murders, but the UK’s Inter-Parliamentary Union found in an inquiry in 2003 that his trial failed to meet several fairness criteria.
Simon Henderson, the author of the IPU inquiry, told a meeting in Westminster that of the 96 witnesses in the trial, only 21 could testify over Marwan Barghouti’s involvement in the deaths of the four Israelis and one Greek, but that none confirmed it and 12 specifically exonerated him of blame.
A Fatah member who is referred to as the Palestinian Nelson Mandela, he regularly tops polls of who the Palestinian people believe would make a good successor to current President Mahmoud Abbas.
Arab Barghouti said: “The UK recognition of Palestine is going to be seen as symbolic in the history books as long as there are no actual steps being taken on the ground.”
He added: “Current Palestinian politics is dysfunctional and that can only be changed with democratic renewal, including a new leadership that really represents the people. We have not had elections for 20 years.
“My father does not have a magic stick, he cannot change everything overnight, but people look at my father as a source of hope.”
Over the past 15 years, Israel has released more than 500 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences, but Barghouti has always been excluded from such deals.
His son said: “The reason he is not being released is because the Israeli government does not want a legitimate Palestinian leader, because it does not want a two-state solution.”
Adding that his father has been held in solitary confinement since Oct. 7, 2023, and is regularly assaulted by guards, he added: “If that is not an invitation to speak out against the violations of international law, I don’t know what is.
“I would expect the UK government, as an upholder of international law, to go further and call for his release.
“He can change the status quo, Palestinian politics, and take us on a path to where there is real hope for a political settlement.
“We have not yet had brave enough British politicians when it comes to the highest level of politics.”
The Foreign Office has not supported calls for Marwan Barghouti’s release, but said it affirms the right of Palestinians in Israeli prisons to have access to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
