Layan Nasir, the object of much concern and prayer, led by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has been released from prison.
This six-month sentence is the second period of detention that Layan has suffered. In 2024 she was held in “administrative detention,” a status which allows people to be held without evidence or charge, for eight months, following a dawn raid at her home in Birzeit in the West bank, where she is a member of St Peter’s Anglican Church. Her family has been visited by a succession of UK Anglican bishops, all of whom have been moved by her family’s story.
Following a visit in 2024, Bishop Guli of Chelmsford kept a candle burning in her chapel and pledged to pray for Layan every day until her release, remembering also, at that time, all those held in detention in places of conflict, including the Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Layan was released in December 2024 but rearrested in August 2025. She was sentenced to six months imprisonment in September, without a public trial. The charges against her relate to a student organisation she was part of during her time as a student at Birzeit University, which the Israeli authorities have proscribed. Her release on bail in 2024 was only achieved on appeal. The authorities claimed she was a threat to the security of the state, a charge which those who know her say is ludicrous. She was working with YMCA prior to her arrest.
She has had to suffer the trauma of imprisonment in Damon prison outside the Occupied Territories, contrary to article 76 of the fourth Geneva Convention.
Palestinian women prisoners held in Damon Prison have reported being subjected to harsh living conditions there.
Layan, now 26, was delighted to be reunited with her family today. Dean Richard Sewell was also there to greet her. He said,
Today there is rejoicing on earth and we believe, in heaven! But the struggle for so many others still to be freed and to receive justice goes on.
All pictures credit: the Nasir family
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