DiEM25 stands in full solidarity with the upcoming global campaign, launched today, demanding the release of Marwan Barghouti. For over 20 years, Barghouti – who is widely regarded as a unifying leader and often called “Palestine’s Nelson Mandela” – has languished in Israeli detention.
Barghouti was arrested in Ramallah in April 2002, taken by Israeli forces to a trial that many observers and international bodies, including the Inter-Parliamentary Union, condemned as deeply flawed and politically motivated.
His imprisonment has not silenced him and, from behind bars, he founded a “university of struggle,” organising lectures and education for fellow inmates. He earned a PhD, taught politics, philosophy and law, and supported hundreds of prisoners in obtaining academic degrees.
DiEM25 recognises that calling to “Free Marwan” is not just about one man: Marwan Barghouti is representative of some 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners, including hundreds of children. Many are held in administrative detention, without charge or trial, in conditions marked by solitary confinement, torture, hunger, and lack of basic care.
Since October 2023, reports have accelerated of abuse in prisons, deteriorating health, and severe restrictions on communication with families.
DiEM25 believes that this is not just a humanitarian issue but a political and strategic one. Barghouti has long called for a unified and democratic Palestinian future. In 2006, he helped craft the “Prisoners’ Document,” a blueprint for political reconciliation across Palestinian factions, advocating for a single Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, democratic reform, and resistance rooted in legitimacy rather than violence. His continued imprisonment blocks one of the few credible voices for unity.
The campaign launched to free Marwan calls for a rights-based international movement to dismantle the structures of repression. The jury of global solidarity is clear: Barghouti must be freed, and every Palestinian held without justice must be released. This campaign is not just about release, it is about ending a colonial regime of indefinite detention and restoring Palestinian political agency.
As long as Barghouti remains behind bars, the democratic aspirations of the Palestinian people are fundamentally compromised. His release would not only recognise his dignity, but strengthen the foundations of solidarity, justice, and self-determination.
DiEM25 calls on its members, supporters, and all people of conscience across Europe and beyond to support this campaign, and amplify its messaging through social media and public events.
The struggle to free Marwan is inseparable from the struggle to free all Palestinian political prisoners. That is why DiEM25 endorses this campaign wholeheartedly – because freedom, justice and dignity are not negotiable, and because political imprisonment to suppress resistance must end.
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