This event is part of a set of protests taking place on 26 May in London outside the Annual General Meeting of G4S. See more also about the protest of the Stop G4S Coalition. G4S protests will also be taking place in Manchester and on Friday in New York.
26TH MAY 2016 – PROTEST G4S AGM – END COMPLICITY IN ISRAEL’S TORTURE OF CHILDREN
DATE: Thu 26th May 2016, 12 noon
LOCATION: Holiday Inn London Sutton, Gibson Road, Sutton, Surrey SM1 2RF
(public transport: Regular trains to Sutton from Victoria every 10-15mins, journey time 30-40mins)
WEB: http://inminds.com/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/events/1223709757641155/
Organized by www.inminds.com
On Thursday 26th May 2016 we will be protesting outside the AGM of British security contractor G4S for its complicity in Israel’s crimes against Palestinian prisoners. Please join us.
The British security firm G4S is the worlds largest private security contractor. It has been contracted by the Israeli prison service to secure many of its prisons and interrogation centres where Palestinian political prisoners including women and children and caged and tortured. Figures for August 2015 show that 61% of all Palestinian political prisoners are caged in G4S secured prisons, this includes 100% of all the children Israel is caging and torturing.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child’s damming report on Israel from 4 July 2013 states that “an average of two [Palestinian] children per day” are “arrested, interrogated and detained” by the Israeli army, that the children are “systematically subject to degrading treatment, and often to acts of torture.. physical and verbal violence, humiliation, painful restraints, hooding of the head and face in a sack, threatened with death, physical violence, and sexual assault against themselves or members of their family, restricted access to toilet, food and water. These crimes are perpetrated from the time of arrest, during transfer and interrogation, to obtain a confession but also on an arbitrary basis as testified by several Israeli soldiers as well as during pretrial detention.. Many Palestinian child detainees are transferred out of the OPT and serve their detention and sentences inside Israel in breach of article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention”.
A legal study conducted by the Diakonia International Humanitarian Law Resource Centre found that G4S has “failed to demonstrate a genuine commitment to comply with international law in good faith” and is complicit in several of Israel’s violations of international law. Similarly a 2012 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 criticises G4S for its complicity with Israeli violations of international law.
40% of the 600 children that were taken from Jerusalem alone, were sexually abused by Israeli soldiers during arrest or interrogation. During interrogation 75% of Palestinian children detained by Israel are physically tortured.
G4S provides the security systems which keep these torture dens operational. Prisoners who have survived these hell holes recall seeing G4S logos on the cameras that witnessed their abuse.
Inminds chair Abbas Ali said “G4S is a British company, as UK citizens we have a direct responsibility for the crimes G4S commits in Palestine. We at Inminds have campaigned against G4S for 4 years with regular protests outside their UK headquarters. In 2013 they promised to quit operations in the West Bank, in particular contacts with Ofer Prison. They broke their promise and this did not happen. In 2014 they promised to end all their contracts with the Israeli Prison Service – this also has not happened. Now this year G4S has announced it is exiting Israel altogether – ditching all its contracts with the apartheid state.. We are not holding our breath, we will be protesting at the AGM demanding actual action on the ground, not empty promises. Our campaign continues until victory.”
Many groups will be joining us on the day as part of the wider StopG4S coalition which focuses on all of G4S’s criminal activity across the globe.
LIVE UPDATES DURING PROTEST
We will, inshAllah, be tweeting live from the protest with live photos being uploaded to our twitter and facebook page. So if you can’t join us on the day, please help us by sharing the photos as they get uploaded.
https://www.facebook.com/
https://twitter.com/
JazakAllah
Abbas Ali
Palestinian Prisoners Campaign
www.inminds.com/caged
The Palestinian Prisoners Campaign aims to raise awareness for the plight of Palestinian prisoners and build solidarity for their struggle and work towards their freedom. The campaign was launched by Innovative Minds (inminds.com) and the Islamic Human Rights Commission (ihrc.org) on the occasion of Al Quds Day 2012 (on 17th August 2012), since then we have held actions every fortnight in support of Palestinian prisoners, if you can spare two hours twice a month then please join the campaign by coming to the next action.
