Statement of Free Palestinian Students

"On Friday August 29, Mohammed Nidal Arman, Birzeit University's past student council president, was released after over 22 months of administrative detention -- imprisonment without charge or trial.

Past president of the Birzeit University Student Council, a sixth-year student in Accounting, and an elected leader of the Islamic Bloc at Birzeit University, he and his classmates have been repeatedly targeted for imprisonment.

Mohammed, from Ein Yabroud east of Ramallah, was elected president of the Birzeit Student Council on 2 October 2023, following the arrest and imprisonment of then-President Abdel-Majeed Hassan. He was abducted by the occupation one month later, on 2 November 2023, and ordered to 6 months of administrative detention. His detention has been repeatedly and arbitrarily renewed since that time. His successor as Student Council chair, Saleh Hassan, is also currently jailed under administrative detention.

Mohammed Arman has been abducted by the occupation on multiple previous occasions. In May 2022, he was arrested and beaten by occupation soldiers on the eve of the university elections, as one of a group of 7 leaders of the Islamic Bloc. They were targeted as part of the ongoing attempts of the occupation to interfere with the student movement. On that occasion, he served 9 months in Zionist jails, and was released in time to run and be elected as a member of the executive of the Islamic Bloc slate in 2023.

The targeting of student leaders amid the genocide in Gaza is a deliberate strategy of the occupation to undermine student involvement in the Palestinian resistance to genocide in the West Bank.

While inside prison, he dedicated himself to memorizing the Holy Qur’an, and in November 2024, his fellow students congratulated him on completing the memorization of the holy book inside the occupation jails."