On Saturday, 18 September, Samidoun Stockholm took to the streets in the shopping area of Skärholmen, Sweden, as part of the international day of action to #BoycottPuma. The action came as part of the global boycott campaign targeting the sportswear company, demanding it cease its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association. Palestinian football players and global sports justice activists have called on the company, which purports to follow a human rights mandate, to end its support for Israeli colonialism and apartheid.
The Puma-sponsored IFA is not only an institution of the Israeli colonial system built atop colonized Palestinian land. It also explicitly includes six teams based in Israel’s illegal colonial settlements in the occupied West Bank of Palestine. Palestinian families have been expelled from their homes and lands to make way for these settlements and sporting fields. Indeed, Israeli settlements are war crimes under international law and part and parcel of the systematic Nakba targeting the Palestinian people for over 73 years.
Samidoun Stockholm members set up a table with Palestinian flags and Samidoun banners, and distributed leaflets to shoppers and passers-by, calling on them to join the Boycott Puma campaign. They received support and encouragement from many people who learned about the role of the sportswear company in supporting Israeli apartheid.
The Samidoun table also featured posters and information in support of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails, including Palestinian political leaders Ahmad Sa’adat and Khalida Jarrar. They also highlighted the six heroes of the Freedom Tunnel who escaped the high-security Israeli Gilboa prison and have become a global symbol of the Palestinian will to liberation.
Samidoun Stockholm is organizing to build solidarity for Palestinian political prisoners and the Palestinian liberation movement, working together with comrades in Gothenburg and Malmö. Check out the Samidoun Sweden website, or contact Samidoun Stockholm on Twitter or Instagram.
