United Nations (UN) human rights experts have called on Israel to immediately release the Palestinian prisoner Ahmed Manasra – who was arrested in 2015 at the age of 13.
“Ahmed’s imprisonment for almost six years has deprived him of childhood, family environment, protection, and all the rights he should have been guaranteed as a child,” the experts said in a statement.
“This case is haunting in many respects and his continuous detention, despite his deteriorating mental conditions, is a stain on all of us as part of the international human rights community.”
The experts called on the Israeli authorities to release Manasra and allow him to return to his family and receive psychological counseling and support.
The statement said that it was time for the “pervasive system of arrest and detention” practiced by Israel in the “occupied Palestinian territories” to receive international attention.
In April, the Israeli judiciary dropped the terrorism charges against Manasra amid growing calls for his release.
Israeli forces arrested Ahmed Manasra in 2015 from the occupied city of Jerusalem, for allegedly attempting to carry out a stabbing attack. He was 13-year-old, and he is currently 20-year-old, and the Israeli soldiers shot him and his cousin Hassan, who was martyred on the day of his arrest.
At the time, videos were published of harsh scenes of him lying on the ground screaming and injured. The occupation soldiers also tried to pin him to the ground and abuse him. His case later turned into a global one.
Recently, a campaign was launched to demand the immediate release of the prisoner Manasra under the hashtag #FreeAhmedManasra.
It is noteworthy that the prisoner Ahmed Manasra was born on January 22, 2002, in the occupied city of Jerusalem. He is one of a family of 10 members. He has two brothers and is the eldest male in his family, in addition to 5 sisters.
Before his arrest in 2015, he was a student in the eighth grade at the New Generation School in Jerusalem, and he was 13 years old at the time.
Ahmed’s mother had called on the Israeli authorities to release him in a video clip that was widely circulated on Arab platforms.
In the video, the mother said: “My son wants me, he clings to the glass (during the visit), and I tell him I wish I could take you out of the glass. I hugged him in the air as he cried, and the soldiers provoked us to the maximum, yelling at us to leave his father and I.”
