Palestinian Mandela receives SA support for prize

THE AHMED Kathrada Foundation has come out in support of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu’s nomination for jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouthi to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

On June 6, Tutu, a Nobel laureate, wrote to the committee nominating the “Palestinian Mandela” for the 2017 awards.

He called on the committee to “seize this occasion to bring attention back to the question of Palestine and to the calls for a just and lasting peace, a prospect Marwan Barghouthi continues advocating and acting for, despite years of imprisonment and isolation”.

Tutu said his nomination “constitutes a clear signal of support for the realisation of the Palestinian people’s unsustainable rights, including to self determination”.

“I hereby nominate the imprisoned Palestinian leader, Marwan Barghouthi for the Nobel Peace Prize. Marwan Barghouthi was first imprisoned when he was 15 years old, and has spent more than two decades of life in Israel jails.

“He was the first Palestinian Parliamentarian to be abducted in 2002.“These arrests against elected representatives constitute a blatant attack against the Palestinian nation, democracy and rights.”

The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation’s Director, Neeshan Balton, said that the nomination by Tutu and fellow Nobel laureate, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, held significant weight.

“When individuals of this calibre make such a call, it not only reiterates the faith that the Palestinian and members of the international community have in Barghouthi, but puts Israel’s occupation and imprisonment of thousands of Palestinians, back in the spotlight.”

Several Nobel laureates, including Tutu, have supported the international campaign for Barghouthi’s release, and the release of all other Palestinian political prisoners. The campaign was launched by Struggle veteran Ahmed Kathrada and Barghouthi’s wife, Fadwa, on Robben Island in 2013.

Barghouthi was arrested in 2002 and sentenced to life behind bars.

“Irrespective of what Barghouthi has been charged for by the Israel apartheid state, he is key to Palestinian unity and to negotiating a peaceful settlement.

“Comrade Arch has very aptly stated that if Marwan receive the Nobel peace prize, it will bring us closer to the day this holy land can stop being a living testimony of injustice and impunity, occupation and apartheid, and can finally be a beacon of hope and peace,” Kathrada said.