UK’s Green Party leader Zach Polanski wore a shirt calling to free convicted Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti at a Saturday party event, according to videos published on social media by the London Green Party.
“Free Marwan,” read a shirt with the colors of the Palestinian flag worn by Polanski, the slogan referring to Barghouti, the leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades during the Second Intifada, who was convicted on five counts of murder for involvement in terrorist attacks.
Polanski defended the shirt on Monday night in a social media post, asserting that Barghouti had been imprisoned since 2004 without a fair trial.
The Green Party leader compared the arch-terrorist to former South African president Nelson Mandela, citing an unverified quote by the anti-apartheid activist echoing the same sentiment.
Last week, Polanski caused further controversy by signing an open letter calling for the government to investigate IDF veterans with British citizenship and screen them at the border.
“The IDF has been accused of horrific war crimes in Gaza by the UN Human Rights Council & Amnesty International,” Polanski said on X/Twitter on Thursday. “It is just common sense that those involved in war crimes should be held to account.”
The letter, organized by Declassified UK and the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), demanded that the UK implement airport disclosure requirements for IDF service; that Israelis, or those traveling from Israel, be subject to screening for war crimes; and that investigations and prosecutions of veterans and service members be conducted.
Polanski had collaborated in his Sunday Barghouti Instagram post with an organization that on Wednesday attempted to erect a statue of the terrorist in London’s Parliament Square. Activists were intercepted by officers and forced to remove the bronze figure.
The Free Marwan Now campaign said that, one day, a statue of Barghouti would stand in the square alongside other bronze statues of figures such as Oliver Cromwell, Benjamin Disraeli, and Nelson Mandela.
“Marwan will take his rightful place alongside other civil rights leaders,” the activist campaign said in an Instagram post shared in collaboration with former Gaza flotilla activist Greta Thunberg and actors Mark Ruffalo and Liam Cunningham.
Like Polanski, campaigners compared Barghouti to Mandela.
“Nelson Mandela was once politically isolated and labeled a terrorist before being recognized as a global symbol of freedom and justice,” the campaign said. “Marwan Barghouti faces a similar fate.”
