Marwan Barghouthi, member of the Fateh central committee and a prominent Palestinian national leader, was transferred by Israeli prison officials into solitary confinement at Hadarim prison, reported the campaign for his release on Tuesday, 12 December 2017.
The campaign said that “this decision to isolate him comes to prevent him from communicating with his people in the homeland and diaspora at a time when Palestine and the capitals and cities of the world are protesting widely against the decision of U.S. president Donald Trump to declare his country’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the Israeli occupation state. This decision to isolate is a form of retaliation for a statement issued by Marwan Barghouthi on the anniversary of the great popular intifada a few days ago.” The statement, issued from Hadarim prison, emphasized the rights of the Palestinian people to return, self-determination and their capital, Jerusalem, and urged the expansion of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and international solidarity with Palestine.
Barghouthi has been ordered to solitary confinement on 27 occasions and spent several years in solitary confinement in the past, especially after his imprisonment in April 2002. He was held in solitary confinement in April-May 2017 because of his role in leading a mass hunger strike for 51 days in Israeli prison; he has also been barred from visits by his wife, the lawyer Fadwa Barghouthi, until the end of 2019.
Recently, a French delegation to Palestine, including a number of mayors involved with the campaign to free Barghouthi, was told that its members would be denied access to Palestine for their role in supporting Palestinian prisoners and the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. The delegation sought to meet with Barghouthi in Hadarim prison.