A vast audience of institutions, unions, popular and grassroots movements and political parties as well as journalists demonstrated to demand the release of the Palestinian prisoner and journalist Mohamed Alqeeq yesterday evening (Sunday) in front of United Nations headquarters in Shmeisani/Amman.

 The protesters demanded the United Nations to exert pressure on the Israeli occupation authorities to release the political prisoner Alqeeq to be released immediately and urgently, in addition to the release of all administrative detainees held in Israeli prisoners.

The demonstration was organised by a national campaign consisting of local civil society organizations for the defence of the political prisoner and journalist Alqeeq, where a delegation of members of the campaign met with a United Nations representative in Jordan and handed her a statement addressed to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva Zeid Bin Raad.The statement called on the United Nations in all its organs to immediately intervene to unconditionally release Alqeeq before it is too late and before he loses his life for his insistence on his freedom and rights. The campaign also demanded the United Nations to terminate it’s contracts with the notorious security firm “G4S”, which is known for serving Israeli prisons and the administrative detention system.

 

The statement was endorsed by 58 Jordanian bodies including political parties, unions, popular movements as well as a number of media agencies. The demonstrators carried banners reading "Freedom for Mohammed Alqeeq" , "Victory to the Battle of Hungry Stomachs” and "Administrative detention sponsored by G4S".It is noteworthy that the occupation detention centres imprisons about 6,800 prisoners and 660 administrative detainees, including 23 Jordanian prisoners.The campaign also organised a twitter storm on the social media website using #Freedom4Alqeeq and announced that they were continuing pressure on the United Nations. The organisers of the “Jordanian Campaign to Defend Palestinian Journalist Mohamed Al-Qeeq” consists of 8 bodies including APN, the Jordanian Women’s Union, Jordan Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions movement (Jordan BDS), the Centre for Defending the Freedom of Journalists, Rajae’ Center, The Campaign for Prisoners’ Solidarity, and Jordanian Lawyers’ Bar Association.