Activists in London protested outside the UK offices of UNICEF on Friday, 18 March, demanding the organization – and all UN institutions – drop their contracts with G4S, the security conglomerate that provides security services and equipment to Israeli prisons, checkpoints and police training centers.
Inminds organized the action, which demanded that UNICEF cut its $1 million in G4S contracts. Over 200 international and Palestinian organizations are demanding that United Nations institutions drop their contracts with the corporation; recently, UNICEF in Jordan ended its G4S contracts.
G4S recently announced that it would be selling off its subsidiary in occupied Palestine after a sustained international campaign, that led to significant contract losses for the corporation. In the same announcement, G4S indicated that it would be getting out of the UK and US private juvenile prison business; however, activists, including the Palestinian Boycott National Committee have emphasized the importance of continued pressure on G4S to ensure that it is held to its commitments. Every day, Palestinian prisoners continue to have their freedom denied inside G4S-secured prisons. “At a time when Israel is stepping up its campaign of mass incarceration as a way of repressing Palestinian society, G4S should immediately end its role in the notorious Israeli prison system, as well as its involvement in securing Israeli checkpoints and illegal settlements,” said Sahar Francis of Addameer.
Inminds has been involved in a years-long campaign against G4S in Britain, organizing nearly weekly protests and actions against the corporation’s involvement in the imprisonment of Palestinians.
All photos by Inminds.
