Algeria, BDS and Kenya: The three protests I coated on Saturday twelfth April 2014 have been all about actions in different international locations, although the primary was calling on UK shoppers to take motion by boycotting items produced in illegally occupied Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.
Don’t Purchase Sodastream at John Lewis – Oxford St
Supporters of the Palestinian Solidarity Marketing campaign have been handing out flyers in a daily fortnightly protest exterior John Lewis, urging individuals to not purchase SodaStream merchandise which have been then being made in unlawful Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.
The protests are part of the BDS marketing campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israeli merchandise referred to as for by Palestinian civil society, notably aimed toward merchandise that are made within the illegally occupied settlements.
The Monetary Instances had not too long ago commented that the “standing of the settlements is evident in worldwide regulation even when Israel chooses to disregard this and broaden its colonisation of Palestinian land, whereas ostensibly negotiating on the creation of a Palestinian state.” Sodastream makes a few of its dispensers in Ma’ale Adumim, a big Israeli settlement within the occupied West Financial institution. Commerce with these unlawful settlements is against the law underneath worldwide regulation.
Sodastream declare that they promote peaceable coexistence between Arabs and Jews by using round 500 Palestinians, however the FT identified “The way in which to create Palestinian jobs is to finish the occupation and let Palestinians construct these foundations – to not construct “bridges to peace” on different individuals’s land with out their permission.”
A former Sodastreamn employee there claims that the majority Palestinians working for Sodastream assist the boycott “as a result of they’re in opposition to [Israel’s] occupation. However they can not afford to personally boycott work alternatives.” The corporate was reported to be making an attempt to arrange a brand new manufacturing unit inside Israel fairly than the occupied territories which might primarily make use of Israeli Arabs. In 2015 on account of protests resembling this one, Sodastream moved manufacturing from Ma’ale Adumim within the occupied West Financial institution to Lehavim in Israel correct. The corporate, which had been based within the UK in 1903 however relaunched in 1998 was purchased by PepsiCo in 2018.
Earlier than the institution of the state of Israel, Palestinians (together with Druze & Bedouins) owned 92% of the land, whereas Jews owned about 8%. The UN awarded Israel 54% of the land, although a pretty big a part of this was empty desert. Within the 1948 conflict, Israel took one other 24%. In 1967 Israel occupied all of Palestine and with additional settlements and the constructing of the separation wall since then solely the Gaza strip and round 40% of the occupied West Financial institution stays underneath Palestinian management.
Don’t Purchase Sodastream at John Lewis
In opposition to the Electoral Masquerade in Algeria – Algerian Embassy, Driving Home St
This protest in London got here as presidential elections have been about to start in Algeria, electing President Bouteflika for his fourth time period since 1999.
The Algeria Solidarity Marketing campaign say these elections are an enormous rip-off and they’re “extra satisfied than ever that the upcoming elections can be neither free and honest, nor clear. They are going to actually not end result within the election of a professional President, consultant of the desires of the individuals.”
Their marketing campaign referred to as “for an enormous boycott and/or abstention from voting and its full rejection of the ‘Presidential ballot’, because it deems it to be a mere spectacle meant to keep up and cloak its authoritarian and corrupt rule in electoral legitimacy.”
The turnout within the election was low at 51.7%, and as little as 20% in some areas, and round 10% of votes have been clean or invalid. However of those that voted, 81.5% have been for Bouteflika. Sick well being meant he made few public appearances in his fourth time period and he resigned in April 2019 after months of mass protests, dying two years later.
In opposition to the Electoral Masquerade in Algeria
Somali Refugees mistreated in Kenya – Kenya Excessive Fee, Portland Place
Members of the Somali neighborhood protested exterior the Kenyan Embassy in opposition to the mistreatment of Somali refugees on the Kasarani Focus Camp in Kenya. They referred to as for the ICC to analyze the crimes being dedicated there.
In keeping with Reuters, the Kenyan authorities arrested greater than 1,000 Somalis in mass arrests in a Somali dominated suburb of Nairobi following terrorist assaults by the Somali militant Islamic group al Shabaab. Nearly 4000 have been arrested and greater than a thousand have been held within the Kasarani sports activities stadium. Human Rights Watch reported many have been held in packed and filthy police station cells they usually noticed “police whipping, beating, and verbally abusing detainees. There have been quite a few credible accounts of Kenyan safety forces extorting cash and beating individuals in the course of the arrests and in detention.”
Entry to the Kasarani camp by invesigators and reporters was severely restricted, and the few individuals allowed entry “weren’t in a position to freely interview detainees within the stadium.”
The arrests adopted quite a lot of earlier incidents reported by Human Rights Watch when “Kenyan police in Nairobi tortured, raped, and in any other case abused and arbitrarily detained no less than 1,000 refugees, together with ladies and kids, between mid-November 2012 and late January 2013, following grenade and different assaults.”
Kenya nonetheless hosts giant numbers of refugees from different African international locations, together with round 287,000 Somalis in a complete of 520,000 refugees and asylum seekers.
Somali Refugees mistreated in Kenya
Tags: Algeria, Algeria Solidarity Marketing campaign, Algerians, asylum seekers, BDS, beating, Bouteflika, boycott, divest, Divestment, Electoral Masquerade, human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch, unlawful settlements, Israel, Israeli settlements, John Lewis, Kasarani Focus Camp, Kasarani sports activities stadium, Kenyan police, Kenyans, London, mass arrests, occupied Palestine, Oxford St, Palestinian land, Palestinian Solidarity Marketing campaign, peter Marshall, protest, PSC, refugees, sanctions, Sodastream, Somali Refugees, Somalis, West financial institution, whipping
You’ll be able to depart a response, or trackback from your personal website.
