Palestinians manifest against the detention by Israel of Mahmoud Nawajaa

Palestinians manifested in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday, insisting EU pressure on Israel to release a local leader of the global BDS campaign to boycott Israel.

It’s noted that Mahmoud Nawajaa, coordinator of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in the occupied Palestinian territories, was detained at his home in Ramallah on July 30. Many rights groups, including Amnesty International, have appealed for his free. Amnesty reported in an August 7 press release: He has been detained solely for exercising his rights to freedom of expression and association and is therefore a prisoner of conscience.

Moreover, more than 100 protesters gathered outside the German delegation office in Ramallah demanding the country, which currently holds the European body’s rotating presidency, to make pressure to Israel. Omar Barghouti, a co-founder of BDS reported: Our main message to the European Union and to Germany is that you need to intervene with the Israelis, force them to uphold human rights and those who defend them.

The movement appeal for a large ranging embargo of Israel because of its treatment of the Palestinians. Israeli sources familiar with Nawajaa’s case who requested anonymity informed AFP that he was detained for security offenses, not over his role in BDS. Whereas, they did not detail the nature of the allegations against him and Nawajaa has not been charged in court. In fact, Israel sees BDS as a strategic threat and accuses it of anti-Semitism.

Activists highly deny the charge, and they compare the embargo to the economic isolation that helped in the fail of racism in South Africa. Israel, last year, throw out the country director of Human Rights Watch, Omar Shakir, after accusing him of backing BDS, and he denied this.