Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses our strongest solidarity with Olivia Zémor, the president of CAPJPO-EuroPalestine in France. She is being sued by TEVA Pharmaceuticals — the largest Israeli corporation by market value, a producer of generic pharmaceuticals — for publishing the call to #BoycottTEVA on the EuroPalestine website due to the company’s complicity in Israeli apartheid, colonization and occupation. The trial of Olivia Zémor reflects the alliance of Israeli capitalism and the French state in seeking to suppress and silence advocacy for Palestinian rights and liberation.
In 2020, the European Court of Human Rights affirmed the right to boycott Israel, specifically invalidating the French prosecution of Palestine solidarity organizers for activities to boycott Israeli goods, corporations and institutions. Nevertheless, French Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti, in blatant violation of the decision of the ECHR, has distributed a circular to prosecutors throughout the country, urging them to prosecute activists for boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign and attempt to win convictions for their expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people.
This, of course, comes hand in hand with the extensive legacy of French colonialism and ongoing French imperialism throughout the Arab region and Africa, the French state’s suppression of broad popular movements fighting racism, colonialism and exploitation, and France’s imprisonment of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, Lebanese Arab Communist struggler for Palestine jailed in France for over 36 years.
Now, on 16 March, TEVA is summoning Olivia Zémor to court in Lyon, France, because EuroPalestine posted a call from the Collectif Palestine 69 to boycott TEVA. TEVA is one of the largest manufacturers of generic drugs in the world. It also provides millions of dollars in tax revenue to the Israeli colonial and occupation regime and its military. TEVA’s profits have been accumulated on the back of the colonization and exploitation of the land and people of Palestine. Now, TEVA is joining hands with the French state to aggressively seek to shut down and silence international voices of conscience for exposing corporate complicity and profiteering from the Israeli occupation regime.
We stand with people and organizations around the world to express our solidarity with Olivia Zémor and to reiterate the call to boycott TEVA and boycott Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for justice, return and liberation. We join the calls of organizers in France and around the world to demonstrate, gather, deliver messages of protest and express outrage at French embassies and consulates — and to do all we can to intensify the movement to boycott Israel and for victory and liberation in Palestine, from the river to the sea.
Boycott TEVA! Boycott Israel! Free Palestine!
Please note: Because TEVA is a generic manufacturer, there is almost always another option at the pharmacy. Ask your pharmacist for a generic made by another manufacturer to help spread the word and boycott TEVA!
People have already taken to the streets in Charleroi, Belgium (organized by the Plate-forme Charleroi-Palestine), Toulouse, France (organized by Collectif Palestine Vaincra), Paris, France, Lille, France, and more. Boykot Israel in Denmark has issued a statement, republished below. The Canadian BDS Coalition (of which Samidoun is a member) has also signed on to the collective appeal below.
On Tuesday, 16 March, supporters of justice will gather outside the court in Lyon, France, for a solidarity demonstration at 1:00 pm to stand together with Olivia Zémor against this unjust prosecution.
We urge supporters of Palestine around the world to deliver a letter of protest or take a solidarity photo with the posters below and share it on your social media. Send us a link or your photo at samidoun@samidoun.net! Visit your French consulate or embassy and make it clear: The boycott of Israel is not only a right, it is a duty. Solidarity with Olivia Zémor — and solidarity with Palestine!
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Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is a signatory of the following collective statement, joining many groups and organizations around the world:
Despite a resounding judgment by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which last June confirmed the legitimacy of a popular boycott of a state for political reasons, and mandated the French state to compensate human rights activists unfairly prosecuted for their organizing for the BDS campaign, the government refuses to stop.
Olivia Zémor has thus been summoned before the court of Lyon on Tuesday, 16 March. And that, for having relayed in 2016, on the europalestine.com site, of which she is the publication director, a call from the Collectif Palestine 69 to boycott the Israeli pharmaceutical firm Teva.
The undersigned organizations reaffirm their full solidarity with the activists facing the repression of a government complicit with the apartheid regime.
From this point of view, they are particularly outraged by the recent circular from the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti on the subject. Pretending to ignore the scope of the judgment of the ECHR, Mr. Dupond-Moretti indeed allows himself to enjoin all the prosecutors of France, to maintain the prosecutions against the BDS campaign, and to try to obtain, at the contempt for the law, convictions in these cases.
The Collectif Palestine 69, which brings together in Lyon the entire arc of support for Palestine, is responsible for managing communication locally, and calling for a rally in front of the court, at 1 p.m., just before the trial. Its president will, moreover, testify at the hearing itself.
This is why we are calling for demonstrations to be held everywhere in France, and in particular in Paris…
Solidarity with Olivia Zémor and all the activists of the BDS campaign!
No to the false claims of anti-Semitism against activists!
Down with the complicity of the French government with the Israeli apartheid regime!
Boycott Israel, the racist state!
Signatories:
Amis des Arts et de la Culture de Palestine
Association de Palestiniens en Île-de-France
Association France Palestine Paris 14 – 6
AFPS Paris-Sud
Association France Palestine Solidarité Nîmes
AFPS Albertville
Association Démocratique des Tunisiens en France (ADTF)
Association Nationale des Communistes
Association des Travailleurs Maghrébins de France (ATMF)
Association Marocaine de Droits Humains (AMDH Paris)
Comité BDS 57 (Metz)
Comité poitevin Palestine
Campagne BDS France-Montpellier
Campagne BDS France-Paris
Campagne Unitaire pour la Libération de Georges Abdallah
CAPJPO-EuroPalestine
Car ty es libre (association Istres)
CGT Energie Paris
CGT Unin Locale Paris 18ème
Collectif Ni Guerres Ni État de Guerre
Collectif Palestine Vaincra
Collectif Justice pour la Palestine
Collectif Palestine Nord Essonne
Collectif de Soutien à la Résistance Palestinienne (CSRP59)
Comité pour le Respect des Libertés et des Droits de l’Homme en Tunisie (CRLDHT)
Corsica Palestine
Droits Devant !
Evry Palestine
Fédération des Tunisiens pour une Citoyenneté des deux Rives (FTCR)
Fondation Frantz Fanon
International Jewish Antizionist Network IJAN
ISM : International Solidarity Movement France
LDH 75018
ORIW (ORGANIZATION RACISM ISLAMOPHOBIA WATCH) – Strasbourg
Palestine Libre Haute Marne
PIR
Rete dei Comunisti (Italie)
SAMIDOUN (Réseau International de Solidarité avec les Prisonniers Palestiniens)
Solidarité avec Georges Abdallah Lille
Union Française des Consommateurs Musulmans (UFCM)
Union Juive Française pour la Paix (UJFP)
Union des Tunisiens pour l’Action Citoyenne (UTAC)
International:
Italy:
Comitato « Con la Palestina nel cuore »
Comitato « Per non dimenticare il diritto al ritorno »
Associazione Amici dei prigionieri palestinesi
Comitato « Per non dimenticare Sabra e Chatila ».
Forum Palestina
Belgium:
Plate-forme Charleroi-Palestine
Le Comité Verviers Palestine
La Coordination Namuroise Belgo-Palestinienne, asbl
BACBI (Belgian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel)
Mouvement Citoyen Palestine
Bruxelles Panthères
L’association Belgo-Palestinienne de Liège
Palestina Solidariteit
UK:
Football Against Apartheid
Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Tunisia:
Association FIDA
L’Académie Tunisienne des Connaissances Maqdiciennes
Morocco:
Fédération Marocaine des Droits Humains
Stop Normalisation Maroc
AMDH Association Marocaine des Droits Humains
Canada:
Just Peace Advocates
Palestiniens et Juifs unis (PAJU)
Justice for Palestinians (Calgary)
Canadian BDS Coalition
Oakville Palestinian Rights Association, Canada
Niagara Movement for Justice in Palestine-Israel (NMJPI),
Canada Solidarity with Palestine-St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada
Australia:
The Australian Friends of Palestine,
Women for Palestine,
Australians for Palestine
South Africa:
South African BDS Coalition
Solidarity Greeting for Olivia Zémor
on the occasion of the trial in Lyon Tuesday March 16, 2021
From Boykot Israel Denmark
The French state – on behalf of the Israeli medical company Teva – has prepared a trial against Olivia Zémor at the court in Lyon on Tuesday March 16 trying to criminalize her because of participation in boycott Teva-activities in front of a pharmacy in Lyon back in 2015 and 2016.
Olivia Zémor is the president of the solidarity organization CAPJPO-europalestine struggling for the rights of the Palestinian people.
By this trial, the French state is acting in direct opposition to the European Court of Human Rights which in 2020 declared that boycott of Israel for political reasons is not illegal.
Teva supports the Israeli apartheid state, contributes economically to Israeli military operations in Gaza and to the development of the illegal settlements in occupied Palestine. Therefore we say: Boycott Teva!
Through the trial in Lyon the French state defends the interests of Teva as well as the interests of the state of Israel.
Boykot Israel Denmark sends our warmest greetings of solidarity to Olivia Zémor and to the French and international Palestine solidarity movement.
Boycott Teva – Boycott Israel – Free Palestine
