Activism

Freedom for Imad Barghouthi

A violation of the right to science anywhere is an attack to scientists everywhere.

Editor’s Note: The following statement was released today by the Scientists for Palestine. Mondoweiss occasionally publishes press releases and statements from organizations in an effort to draw attention to overlooked issues.

On Thursday, July 16th 2020, renowned Palestinian scientist Imad Barghouthi was detained by Israeli military forces during a routine stop at a military checkpoint outside of Anata. A military court hearing is scheduled for Thursday July 23rd to discuss the case of professor Barghouthi, an astrophysicist at the university of Al-Quds in East Jerusalem. No charges have been brought against him and his lawyer fears that he will be put under administrative detention, an illegal measure commonly used by the Israeli military forces to put Palestinians in arbitrary detention without any charges or trials.

This is not the first time that the Israeli military forces have arrested professor Barghouti, one of Palestine’s most prominent scientists. In 2014 he was placed under administrative detention for two months, and in 2016 he was again detained for six months. In both cases his arrest triggered a significant indignation of the international Scientific community.

Scientists for Palestine condemns the continuous and arbitrary harassment of Professor Barghouthi in the strongest possible terms and calls on all members of the International Scientific community to demand the immediate release of our colleague. The right to science is protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (article 27), as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (article 15). The violation of the right to science anywhere is an attack to scientists everywhere.

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Incitement to terrorism is a serious crime. No?
He has already been sentenced to 7 months in prison in 2016.

But acts related to terrorism are a more serious crime. No?
The fact that you do not know the reason for the arrest is not a reason to claim that he was arrested without a cause. Usually in such cases the prosecution does not release intelligence material to the Arab lawyers. Because if that happened, then thousands of Arabs would volunteer to be arrested so that Israel would reveal its intelligence database to them.

@mondonut
“And finally (hard to believe this must be repeated) blowing up civilians in buses and pizza parlors is terrorism”
So gratifying to hear you confirm that Begin,Shamir,Irguners,Stern Gangers and all the other wonderful heroic founders of the “State” of Zioland were terrorists.