May 15, 2012

#BDS: Palestinian Prisoners Score Heroic Victory #PalHunger


Struggle to End Israel’s Oppression and International Complicity Continues
15 May 2012 -- Nearly a month into the Palestinian prisoners' hunger strike, a historic victory has been achieved, as Israeli authorities were forced to comply with the prisoners’ main demands. Coinciding with the Palestinian commemoration of the 64th anniversary of the Nakba, the systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing that uprooted most Palestinians from their homeland around 1948, the prisoners’ victory has heightened hope about the prospects for Palestinian freedom, justice, self determination and the return of refugees.
This important triumph for the Palestinian popular struggle could not have been reached without the unwavering resolve of the prisoners themselves, grassroots mobilization in their support in Palestine, and the immense wave of effective solidarity and calls for holding Israel accountable that the strike has triggered around the world.
More than a thousand people around the globe have pledged to undertake a 24-hour hunger strike in solidarity with the prisoners, to take place this Thursday. While the solidarity hunger-strike has been called off, due to the prisoners' victory, injustice and illegal repression continue in Israeli prisons.
Emphasizing imprisonment as a critical component of Israel’s system of occupation, colonialism and apartheid practiced against the Palestinian people, Palestinian civil society and human rights organizations have called for intensifying the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign to target corporations profiting directly from the Israeli prison system. In particular, we call for action to be taken to hold to account G4S, the world’s largest international security corporation, which helps to maintain andprofit from Israel’s prison system, for its complicity with Israeli violations of international law.
Please click here to demand G4S ends its involvement in the Israeli prison system and its complicity in violations of Palestinian human rights.


#BDS Palestinian writers call for boycott of Jerusalem int’l writers’ fest, Eleanor Kilroy

As hunger striking Palestinian prisoners, Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla, mark their 75th day without food today in protest against detention without charge, solitary confinement and restrictions on family visits in Israeli jails, the 3rd International Writers' Festival begins in Jerusalem. According to a statement released on Thursday by the General Union of Palestinian Writers, the festival "sends a clear message to the world that the 'Israeli cultural establishment’ is an integral part of the 'Israeli colonial establishment’: the first wages war on Palestinian memory, while the latter continues its war against Palestinian existence." Read more here.

BDS roundup: 10,000 signatures delivered to Irish corporation demanding divestment from Israeli contracts


This week in BDS news around the world: 10,000 signatures delivered to Irish building materials corporation demanding divestment from Israeli business contracts; a call for 24 hours of hunger in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails; and more!  Read more here.