Speaking over Zoom from his home in Ramallah, Arab Barghouti sits under a poster of his father, Marwan, cuffed hands raised above his head in a defiant victory gesture – a symbol of Palestinian liberation. It’s an iconic image which has since been immortalized in murals around the world.
Marwan Barghouti embodies the phrase ‘one man’s terrorist, is another man’s freedom fighter’. The former Fatah leader and political activist has spent more than two decades in prison, accused by Israel of planning deadly attacks during the Second Intifada and membership of a ‘terror organization’ – charges he has fiercely denied. Though the trial has widely been condemned by legal experts as flawed, Barghouti remains incarcerated in brutal conditions.1
