Tag Archives: International

Human Rights and Solidarity Groups in Canada support Richard Falk

Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign, Nov 3, 2012

If you would like to sign on to this statement, please email boycottapartheid@gmail.com or click here to use our online form.

Statement on Richard Falk

We, the undersigned, write today to make clear our strong opposition to the recent Canadian government call for the resignation of Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The attack came following comments by Richard Falk on October 24 that highlighted corporate complicity in illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank and Jerusalem. He noted that the settlements are in clear violation of international law, and warned that civil and criminal liability may be extended to companies acting in contravention of international human rights. Falk called for boycott of corporations engaging in such business practices, drawing particular attention to the activities of Caterpillar Incorporated (USA); Veolia Environment (France); G4S (United Kingdom); The Dexia Group (Belgium); Ahava (Israel); the Volvo Group (Sweden); the Riwal Holding Group (the Netherlands); Elbit Systems (Israel); Hewlett Packard (USA); Mehadrin (Israel); Motorola (USA); Assa Abloy (Sweden); and Cemex (Mexico) in establishing and maintaining settlements. Continue reading

cbc.ca: Canada, Israel call for UN investigator’s resignation

October 26, cbc.ca

The UN special investigator on human rights in the Palestinian territories called Wednesday for a boycott of all companies that have dealings with Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem until they adhere to international rights standards and practices.

Israel, the U.S. and Canada all rejected Richard Falk’s report, accusing the UN special rapporteur of bias against Israel and calling for his removal.  Continue reading

Al-Jazeera: Assange Case – Sweden’s Shame in Violating Human Rights

by Mark Weisbrot,  Al-Jazeera, September 9, 2012

It was like a scene from a Hollywood movie, where the kidnapper walks up from behind, with a gun protruding from his trench coat pocket. “Keep walking, and don’t say anything,” he warns.

Such was the U.K. government’s threat three weeks ago to Ecuador, that British police could invade the Ecuadorian embassy if necessary to arrest WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange. But Ecuador’s foreign minister didn’t keep walking, and said something, to the great embarrassment of the U.K. Foreign Office. The Foreign Office tried to say it wasn’t a threat—although it was now available to the world in writing – and then took it back. Continue reading

Mondoweiss: Australian pro-Palestine activists beat charges

Vashti Kenway, Mondoweiss, July 24, 2012

Australian pro-Palestine activists have had a major victory in their year long court battle with the Victorian state government. A Melbourne magistrate has dismissed the substantive charges against the protesters known as the Max Brenner 16.

The activists were arrested last July 2011 at a demonstration against the Max Brenner chocolate shop; a company owned by the Strauss group which is renowned for its financial and moral backing of two of the most murderous brigades in the Israeli military, the Golani and Givati. These units are notorious for their malicious attacks on Gaza in the assault in 2008/ 2009 and more recently as the shock troops for the Israeli colonies in Hebron.

The charges, ‘trespass in a public place’ and ‘besetting’, were pursued by the Victorian police in a 17 day case, which saw 26 police witnesses, 4 civilian witnesses called to the stand and mounted an estimated 1 million dollars in court costs. The time, money and effort devoted to the case reveals the determination of the Victorian police and the Australian Zionist movement to criminalise dissent and to crack down on pro-Palestine voices. Continue reading

The Gatestone Institute: France Penalizes Boycott of Israeli Products

by Peter Martino, The Gatestone Institute, July 12, 2012

Last May, the Cour de Cassation, the Supreme Court of France, ruled that calls for a boycott of Israeli products constitute discrimination and as such are illegal under French law.

The verdict was the final ruling in a legal battle that went on for years. On 9 July 2005, exactly seven years ago, the Palestinian Authority called for a worldwide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Campaign against the Jewish State. In February 2009, following the Gaza War in the winter of 2008-2009, several leftist and pro-Palestinian organizations in France convened to organize a French BDS campaign. The activists target French and international corporations that do business in Israel, French branches of Israeli companies, and supermarkets selling Israeli products. Continue reading

IMEMC: Israel To Indict Journalist Uri Blau

International Middle East Media Center,  May 30, 2012  by Circarre Parrhesia

Israeli journalist, Uri Blau, will be indicted for possession of classified Israeli military documents, by Israel’s Attorney General, Yahuda Weinstein, Haaretz reports. Blau, who reports for Israeli newspaper Haaretz, received the documents from Anat Kamm, who was convicted in February of passing the documents on without authorization.

The State Prosecutor’s office stated during the announcement that he intends to indict Blau, that there was no connection between Blau’s activity as a professional journalist and the possession of the classified documents and that “betrayed his duty – and later his commitment before the state – to cease possession of them.” Continue reading

SFSC: Letter to Ha’aretz re Censorship in Israel

To the editor of Ha’aretz:

We write on behalf of the Seriously Free Speech Committee (SFSC) to express our concern regarding the censorship regime currently in place in Israel. We have in mind the military censorship of all news coverage of the IDF; the Boycott Prohibition Bill of 2011, which has been challenged by legal organizations within Israel and even by the Knesset’s legal advisor; the 2011 laws aimed at suppressing commemoration of the nakba and criminalizing any denial of Israel’s character as a Jewish and democratic state; recent proposals by the Justice Ministry to broadly expand wiretap powers; military monitoring and censorship of the social media of journalists, bloggers and traditional news sites; the Israeli Broadcast Authority’s removal from a popular radio program of short personal-opinion spots; and the particularly obnoxious censorship of school textbooks both in public Palestinian schools in Jerusalem administered by the Jerusalem Educational Administration and in East Jerusalem private schools. Continue reading

Occupation Magazine: Judicial proceedings against Muhammad Bakri would be a severe Violation of the Freedom of Expression

Occupation Magazine, Vardit Shalfy and Rani Blair, May 14, 2012

Hundreds of Israeli cultural and intellectual personalities and concerned citizens wrote to Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein, calling upon him to reject the idea of prosecuting actor Muhammad Bakri over his film `Jenin, Jenin`.

Among those signing the petition: Anat Gov, Edna Mazya, Rennie Blair, Ohad Naharin, Orly Zilbershatz, Noa Dar, Shevi Gabison, Alon Ophir, Hillel Mittelpunkt, Savyon Liebrecht, Ofira Henig, David Ginton, Iris Le`al, Orly Lubin, Dina Riklis, Tzur Shezaf, Professor Avraham Oz, Tali Itzhaki, Ya`el Ronen and others. The signatories state that any such action – which the Attorney General is reported to be mulling – would constitute a severe and completely unwarranted violation of the Freedom of Expression in Israel. Continue reading

Mondoweiss: Israeli police to activist reciting names of destroyed Palestinian villages: If you keep reading you will be arrested

Leehee Rothschild, Mondoweiss, April 25, 2012

The first text message I received around 22:30 read “The cops have surrounded the building, It’s quite likely that everybody will be arrested once we try to get out of the door. Alert everybody.” The message was sent by a friend of mine, who along with 14 other activists came to the offices of Zochrot (remembering), an Israeli NGO that focuses on commemorating and raising awareness to the Palestinian Nakba, on the eve of the Israeli independence day. They were planning to go out to the street and remind the celebrators the horrible price that was paid and is still being paid by Palestinians for this so called independence.

The planned action was very simple. The activists carried small signs with names of Palestinian villages demolished during the Nakba, which they intended to take to Rabin Square, the main location of festivities in Tel Aviv. They planned to place those signs one by the other, on the floor, create a long line, and ask people to neither step on it, nor ignore it. As aforementioned, though, when they were about to leave the building, located in Ivn Gvirol st., in the centre of Tel Aviv, in order to preform this small protest action, they found themselves in an improvised iron-cage, made of the iron barriers prepared by the municipality to block the streets for the celebrations, surrounded by cops.  Continue reading

Electronic Intifada: BBC challenged for ignoring plight of Palestinian prisoners

By Amena Saleem, Electronic Intifada25 April 2012

Palestinian political prisoners are on mass hunger strike but you’d never know it from watching the BBC.

“I had no idea. How could I not have known?” I heard those words on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day (17 April) from a teacher, shocked at discovering how Israel abducts, abuses and imprisons Palestinian children — some as young as 12 — in the West Bank because they may or may not have thrown stones at Israel’s wall.

She had tagged along with a friend to a talk given in London by Gerard Horton of Defence for Children International–Palestine Section, and until that moment had been unaware of the brutalities of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Horton’s lecture focused on a new DCI-Palestine report which documents the various traumas Palestinian children regularly face during Israeli military detention (“Bound, Blindfolded and Convicted: Children held in military detention,” 14 April 2012).

The answer to her question is fairly simple: this woman — a member of the educated, professional middle-classes — did not know because she relies on the mainstream media, led by the BBC, for her news. And that media’s silence on the realities of Israel’s occupation is deafening.  Continue reading