On October 23, 2023, Professor Imad Barghouthi, renowned Palestinian astrophysicist, had his house surrounded by members of the Israeli military and was forcibly taken to jail for no reason. We, conscious members of the astronomy and physics communities, are writing this petition to demand his immediate release. 

A professor of  Theoretical Space Plasma Physics at Al-Quds University, Dr. Barghouthi received his PhD from Utah State University, where he worked on the effect of wave-particle interactions on ion outflows [1]. He helped found the Arab Conference on Astronomy and Space Sciences and, according to Mario Martone, a theoretical physicist at King’s College London, " [Dr. Barghouthi’s] early works on the dynamics of plasma in the cosmological context have had international relevance." [2]

He was sentenced under what is called administrative detention, which permits the arrest of any person without the need of a trial, charges, or evidence that the person has committed any offense, on the grounds that they allegedly plan to break the law in the future. This practice is in direct violation of Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as laid out by the United Nations, which states "everyone shall be entitled to the following minimum guarantees, in full equality: (a) To be informed promptly and in detail in a language which he understands of the nature and cause of the charge against him." [3]

According to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, "Israel routinely uses administrative detention and has, over the years, placed thousands of Palestinians behind bars for periods ranging from several months to several years, without charging them, without telling them what they are accused of, and without disclosing the alleged evidence to them or to their lawyers." [4] 

Even before the current Israeli military campaign in Palestine, during August of 2023, Israel held over 1,200 detainees under administrative detention, 99% of whom were Palestinians [5]. Furthermore, the Israel Security Agency, Israel Prison Service, and the Israeli military have, for decades, tortured or otherwise mistreated Palestinian detainees. According to Amnesty International, among the methods regularly reported by Palestinian detainees are "painful shackling and binding, immobilization in stress positions, sleep deprivation, threats, sexual harassment, prolonged solitary confinement, and verbal abuse." [6] 

Since October 7th, the situation has only gotten worse. As of April 2024, Israel now holds over 3,600 people under administrative detention [7], tripling the numbers from August. Moreover, due to the overcrowding cells and deteriorating sanitary conditions, released prisoners are reporting a spread of skin disease among detainees, severe reduction of water access, and prisoners being forced to wash their clothes and wear them while still wet [8]. It is under these conditions that Professor Barghouthi, a valuable member of the scientific community, finds himself. According to Scientists for Palestine, Dr. Barghouthi’s colleagues and family are gravely concerned about his health and estimate that he has lost 20-40 kilos (40-90 pounds) while under custody [9].

This is not the first time that Professor Barghouthi has been placed under administrative detention, and it's also not the first time a petition has been successfully written for his release. In December of 2014, he was arrested without charges while on his way to the 11th Arab Conference on Astronomy and Space Sciences. He was released on 18 January 2015 after multiple academic organizations demanded his release [10]​ [11]. On April 24th 2016, he was again held without charges for three months. Later, Israeli authorities attempted to extend his confinement and charged him with incitement over Dr. Barghouthi’s anti-occupation Facebook posts [12]. After international outrage and a petition written up by Jewish Voice for Peace, which over 350 academics from around the world signed, Professor Barghouthi was finally released after one further month of confinement. Among the academics who signed this petition were Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky, Freeman Dyson, David Mumford, and Chandler Davis [13]. In July 2020, Professor Barghouthi was once more detained, with official justification again being over incitement [14]​ [15]. He was supposed to have been released on 2 September but, only hours before his scheduled release, the Israeli West Bank military commander placed him under administrative detention for another four months [16]. Despite this, Dr Barghouthi would only be released from prison at the end of May 2021, and placed under house arrest [17]. While in confinement for almost a year, the international community once more expressed its outrage at Barghouthi’s imprisonment, with over 3,000 signatures in Scientists for Palestine’s petition for his release [18].

These series of arrests serve to showcase a pattern of repression from Israeli authorities of a scientist whose only crime is to vocally express his discontent with the occupation. We, as fellow members of the astronomy, astrophysics, and physics communities are appalled that one of our own has been treated with such injustice and demand his immediate freedom. This petition serves as a way for us to begin expressing this demand.