AURDIP Association of Academics for the Respect of International Law in Palestine Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel 3 Kaplan St. Hakirya Jerusalem 91950, Israel [email protected] Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu: We are writing to urge you to order the immediate release of Dr. Imad Ahmad Barghouthi from Israeli military custody. Dr. Barghouthi, a Palestinian resident of the West Bank, is an astrophysicist and professor of physics at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem. He was reportedly arrested by Israeli soldiers at the military checkpoint at Nabi Saleh in the West Bank, northwest of Ramallah on 24 April 2016. The Times of Israel reported that "neither the IDF nor Israel Police would comment on the matter, and it remains unclear which branch of the Israeli security forces was responsible for his arrest." The Palestine Information Center reported that on 2 May 2016, "An Israeli court ... issued an administrative detention order against Professor Barghouthi”i. Professor Barghouthi is being held without chargeii, a serious violation of human rights. As described in the journal Nature, Professor Barghouthi was previously arrested without charge by Israeli Border Police on 6 December 2014 when he attempted to cross the border from the West Bank to Jordan to board a flight to the United Arab Emirates so that he could attend a meeting of the Arab Union of Astronomy and Space Sciences, an organization he helped to found.iii Professor Barghouthi's attorney at that time, Jawad Boulos, alleged that Dr. Barghouthi was arrested because of his statements in support of Palestinian activities during Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip the previous summer, and that during interrogations Dr. Barghouthi was asked what statements he wrote on Facebook and what he said on television in opposition to the Israeli occupation. Following letters of protest from international scientific organizations, including the Committee of Concerned Scientists in the United States, Dr. Barghouthi was released on 22 January 2015.iv The re-arrest of Professor Barghouthi is part of a broader pattern of disruption and suppression of Palestinian educational systems. The University of Gaza has been bombed multiple times.v Birzeit University in the West Bank has been closed down at least 15 times by the Israeli military, and its former president, Dr. Hanna Nasir, a physicist, was deported and remained in exile for 19 years. Arrests of faculty and students, in some cases because of Facebook posts in opposition to military occupation, have continued into 2016.vi Israel has destroyed or damaged hundreds of Palestinian schools, even kindergartens.vii Article 26 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Israel is a signatory, grants all people the right to education. We urge you henceforth to respect those principles and to order the immediate release of Professor Imad Barghouthi. Sincerely, Maghrébin Elisabeth A.C. Mills Universite Paris8 Jansky Fellow Postdoctoral Researcher, Steward Observatory And Department of S. Akshay Astronomy Assistant Professor, Computer Science University of Arizona Indian Institute of Technology Bombay Ahmed Abbes Ammiel Alcalay Directeur De Recherche Au CNRS,, Professor, Classical, Middle Eastern & Asian CNRS & IHES, Paris France Languages & Cultures Queens College/CUNY Rabab Abdulhadi Associate Professor, Race And Resistance Zahra Ali Studies Dr, Theology And Religious Studies San Francisco State University Chester Khader Abu Alia Judith Allen Lec Lecturer , Language Center Dr., Kelly Writers House Al Quds University University of Pennsylvania Roberta Ahlquist Yali Amit Professor, Teacher Education Professor, Statistics San Jose State University University of Chicago Neel Ahuja Tom And Sara Mayer Associate Professor, English And Professor Emeritus, Sociology Comparative Literature University of Colorado At Boulder University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Rachad Antonius Kadri Aissa Full Professor, Sociology Professeur Émérite , Méditerranée /Monde Université Du Québec À Montréal 2 Philip Argyres Aiyalam Balachandran Professor, Physics Emeritus Professor, Physics University of Cincinnati Syracuse University Mira Ariel Viviane Baladi Professor, Linguistics Directeur De Recherche Au CNRS, Tel Aviv University, Israel NRS & UPMC, Paris, France Anthony Ashbolt Ian Barnard Senior Lecturer, Politics And International Associate Professor of Rhetoric And Studies Composition, English University of Wollongong, Australia Chapman University, USA Hilarie Ashton Suratno Basu Graduate Teaching Fellow, English Research Scholar, Mathematics CUNY Graduate Center Chennai Mathematical Institute Adam Becker Mahmoud Assaf Professor of Classics And Religious Studies, Architect, Architecture Classics/Religious Studies Iuav New York University Barbars Aswad Gordon Beeferman Professor Emeritus, Anthropology Phd Graduate Fellow/Teaching Assistant, Wayne.State University Music New York University Elsa Auerbach Professor, Liberal Arts Joel Beinin Umass Boston Donald J. 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