An international campaign is calling for the release of Palestinian political figure Marwan Barghouti, arguing his freedom could reshape Palestinian politics and revive peace efforts.

Despite two decades behind bars, Marwan Barghouti remains Palestinians’ most popular leader. Supporters say his release could revive peace efforts and heal political fractures, while Israel insists he is a convicted murderer and rejects clemency

The  #FreeMarwan campaign was launched by his family in the West Bank with support from UK-based civil society groups. Murals reading “Free Marwan” have appeared on London streets, coordinated by Creative Debuts – a global art platform – and a large public art installation recently went up in Barghouti’s home village of Kobar, in the West Bank.

A letter signed by international political and cultural figures is expected next week, calling on Israel to release what they describe as “Palestine’s most popular leader.”

A senior leader in the Fatah party and a long-time advocate of a two-state solution, 66-year-old Barghouti has spent more than two decades in Israeli prisons. Despite his incarceration, he remains, according to successive opinion polls, the most popular Palestinian politician in both the West Bank and Gaza.

An  October poll from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that despite plummeting support for Fatah and its current leader and president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, Barghouti is the most popular political figure in the Palestinian sphere, capable of defeating Abbas as well as the now deceased Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

His supporters argue that his release could........

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