Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network joined three more Canadian organizations in an official letter to the Canadian Air Transportation Security Authority on 1 February, calling on CATSA to dump G4S, the British-Danish security corporation that provides security systems, equipment and control rooms to Israeli prisons where Palestinian political prisoners are interrogated, tortured and jailed. G4S is the subject of an international boycott campaign; the boycott has been urged by Palestinian prisoners and is supported by hundreds of international organizations.
Here is a copy of the letter sent by 4 groups to the CATSA Chairperson regarding their contract with G4S.
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Lloyd McCoomb
Chairperson Board of Directors
Canadian Air Transportation Security Authority
99 Bank St
Ottawa, Ontario
K1P 6B9
FAX: 613-990-1295
01/02/16
Dear Mr. McCoomb:
We are writing to share our concern that currently the Canadian Air Transportation Security Authority has a $416 million contract with G4S Canada to provide security at over 20 Canadian airports until March 31, 2017.
Because of contracts with Israel which make it complicit in the maintenance of the repressive infrastructure of the occupation and apartheid state, G4S is the target of an international campaign for boycott and divestment.
- G4S provides security systems for the Ketziot and Megiddo prisons, which hold Palestinian political prisoners from occupied Palestinian territory inside Israel. Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the transfer of prisoners from occupied territory into the territory of the occupier.
- G4S also provides equipment for Ofer prison, located in the occupied West Bank, and for Kishon and Moskobiyyeh detention facilities, where human rights organisations have documented systematic torture and ill treatment of Palestinian prisoners, including child prisoners. Defence for Children-Palestine (DCI-Palestine) has released an urgent appeal to end the practice of holding Palestinian children from the West Bank in solitary confinement in facilities in Israel.
- Beyond Israel’s prison system, G4S provides equipment and services to Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank along the route of Israel’s illegal apartheid Wall and to the terminals isolating the occupied and besieged territory of Gaza. G4S also contracts for equipment and services for the West Bank Israeli Police headquarters and to private businesses based in illegal Israeli settlements. A panel of legal experts has concluded that G4S may be criminally liable for its activities in support of Israel’s illegal Wall and other violations of international law.
Internationally, G4S has been implicated in human rights violations against indigenous people and poor rural communities, particularly in the Global South where the company provides security to international mining and oil and gas companies.
In recent years numerous institutions and governments have heeded the call for boycott and divestment from G4S including the Bill Gates Foundation, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the US United Methodist Church and the municipality of Durham County in North Carolina.
G4S profits daily from occupation, war crimes and human rights violations. Since other security options are available for Canadian airports, it is time for CATSA to side with human rights and refuse to deal with such an internationally disgraced company. We and other concerned people in Canada call for and insist that CATSA cancel their contract with G4S.
We look forward to your early reply,
Aiyanas Ormond
Campaign Coordinator, Boycott and Divest from G4$ Campaign
BDS Vancouver – Coast Salish Territories
Independent Jewish Voices – Vancouver
Samidoun Political Prisoners Solidarity Network
International League of Peoples Struggle (Canada Chapter)
