#BDS: Open call to #Wikimania: ‘Edit’ occupation and apartheid out of #Palestine!

"Wikimania’s decision to hold its annual conference this August in Israel despite its ongoing occupation, colonialism and apartheid can only be seen by Palestinians and international supporters of a just peace as feeding Israel’s impunity and helping it to cover up its grave violations of international law and Palestinian rights. Given Israel’s intensifying ethnic cleansing in occupied Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley, and the Naqab (Negev), its deadly siege on Gaza, and the spread of its illegal colonial settlements, any international conference held in Israel cannot but be a political decision that insists on colluding with Israel. It is also a deep insult to Palestinian civil society which has almost unanimously called for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it fully abides by its obligations under international law. Furthermore, in light of the recent revelation that Wikimania is to be partially sponsored by the East Jerusalem Development Company (EJDC)[1], a state-owned company involved in colonial activity in the occupied Palestinian territory, the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) calls on Wikimedia to reject this sponsorship and calls for the event to be moved from Israel. If it fails to do both, we call on all people of conscience to boycott this Wikimania conference of complicity and shame."


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#BDS NEEDED: #Wikimania 2011 Sponsored by Israeli-Government Company

"Wikimania, the annual conference of the Wikimedia community to be held in the Israeli city of Haifa this August, is to be partially sponsored by the East Jerusalem Development Company (EJDC), an Israeli government-owned company responsible for “the development and operation of tourist sites in eastern and greater Jerusalem.”

EJDC projects, including settlements, conservation areas and new “heritage” sites, have been sprouting up steadily across East Jerusalem. Palestinian residents in Silwan, for example, are under direct threat from the excavation of the “City of David”, while the Jerusalem Municipality has issued plans to convert much of the Wadi Hilweh and Al-Bustan neighbourhoods into a settler-run archeological park. To support this plan, Palestinians are evacuated from their homes, denied building permits, and demolition orders are often issued through the municipality on tenuous licensing pretenses. "

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