More than 50 campaigners for Palestinian human rights occupied the central London offices of G4S today in protest over the British-Danish security company’s supply of equipment used to maintain Israel’s illegal siege on Gaza.

MORE PHOTOS: bit.ly/UGzPs7

More than 50 campaigners for Palestinian human rights occupied the central London offices of G4S today in protest over the British-Danish security company’s supply of equipment used to maintain Israel’s illegal siege on Gaza.

The protestors entered the building in Victoria at 4pm and staged a sit in protest and 4 people locked themselves together. Police removed the protesters after an hour.

“By providing equipment and services to the checkpoints that enforce the closure of Gaza, which includes severe restrictions in movement of people and basic goods, G4S is helping Israel to engineer a humanitarian crisis for Palestinians. G4S is an active accomplice to Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza,” said Bob Williamson.

More than 105 Palestinians including 23 children have been killed since Israel launched its assault in Gaza last week, and more than 800 more have been injured. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights has accused Israel of war crimes including the direct targeting of civilians and civilian buildings and indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.

G4S, which gained notoriety over its failure to provide security personnel to the Olympics, provides body scanners to the Erez checkpoint in Gaza, which serves as part of the Israeli closure policy over the Gaza Strip. G4S announced the deal on the front page of the website of its Israeli subsidiary.

“The Israeli government has been proven to have purposefully restricted food deliveries to Gaza in order to, as one Israeli official put it, ‘put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger’. Why is G4S participating in these gross human rights violations?” added Maham Hashmi.

G4S has contracts with various Israeli agencies to provide equipment and services to Israeli checkpoints, businesses in illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.

G4S also has a contract with the Israeli Prison Service to provide services and equipment to prisons to which Palestinian political prisoners, including children, are held in violation of international law and subjected to mistreatment and torture.

Israel is forbidden to transfer Palestinian prisoners from occupied territories to prisons inside Israel by Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Despite this, thousands of Palestinian prisoners are unlawfully held in prisons inside Israel that are supplied by G4S.

Campaigners have also raised concerns with G4S’ track record of human rights abuses in the UK. The company lost its contract to deport people from the UK last September after 773 complaints of abuse were made against the company and following the death of Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan asylum seeker who died after being “restrained” by G4S guards. G4S has also been criticised for it’s mishandling of asylum housing contracts in Yorkshire and spying on unemployed people it was supposed to be helping back to work.

G4S also runs huge parts of the Lincolnshire police force and hopes to win government contracts to run police, immigration, welfare and prisons services in the coming months.

“How can the UK government give lucrative public contracts to a company that shows such disregard for basic human rights standards across all of its business activities?” asked Maham Hashmi.

NOTES

[1] For more information on Israel’s attack on Gaza see
www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?opt...-&catid=145:in-focus


[2] A full profile of G4S' complicity in human rights abuses can be found at:
www.whoprofits.org/company/g4s-israel-hashmira
www.corporatewatch.org.uk/download.php?id=160

[3] Israel maintains a deadly siege on the Palestinians living in Gaza. Israeli government documents show that Israel is conducting ‘economic warfare’ on the Palestinians in Gaza and deliberately withholds food from the people of Gaza
www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/09/95621/isr...t-gaza-blockade.html
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/17/isr...y-calorie-limit-gaza
electronicintifada.net/content/90-gaza-w...inking-says-un/11544

*PRESS RELEASE*

from WEST MIDLANDS PALESTINE SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN and

UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM STUDENTS FOR JUSTICE IN PALESTINE

For immediate release - 22nd November 2012

*"DIE-IN" ON BBC STEPS TO CHALLENGE BIASED REPORTING ON GAZA*

Campaigners for Palestinian human rights in the West Midlands have called a "die-in" on the steps of the BBC at the Mailbox in Birmingham on Thursday evening, to protest against its biased reporting on the recent Israeli assault on Gaza.

Activists will read out the names of Palestinian civilians who have been killed in the bombings over the past week and a group of children will hand in a protest letter to the BBC management along with a portfolio of evidence that the BBC's coverage is biased towards the Israeli government and is not reporting the facts.

Brian Sheridan, Secretary of West Midlands Palestine Solidarity Campaign (WM PSC), said: "We want to make the public aware that since hostilities began this month there have been 162 Palestinians killed and 5 Israelis; and that from January 2012 to November 2012, 78 Palestinians were killed by Israeli rockets with only 1 Israeli killed.

"The BBC's coverage of events in Gaza is a grotesque inversion of reality. Palestinians have the right to defend themselves.This war was started to allow Israel to test its new missile defence system, and unconditional support from Britain and the US allows Israel to continue to act with impunity.

"As well as mourning the deaths of all the civilians killed in this conflict we mourn the death of the BBC as an icon of investigative journalism."

Naeem Malik, Chair of WM PSC, said:

"I am amazed at the BBC coverage of the attack on Gaza.The BBC needs to know that it is all about the occupation, the siege, the house demolitions, the checkpoints and the continuous humiliation of the Palestinians for the last six decades and more. It has nothing to do with the rockets - they are only a response to the decades of oppression by the Israeli state and the abysmal response from the so-called international community.

"I was shocked and angry at how Jeremy Bowen on the BBC News minimised the carnage by suggesting that Gaza has a culture of martyrdom. It reflects the stereotype that Israel wants to portray.It is racism in the extreme."

The "Die-in" will be held from6pm to 7pm on Thursday 22nd November at the Mailbox.

WM PSC has also organised coaches to take protesters to London on Saturday for the national PSC demonstration for Gaza.


[ ends ]


*Notes for editors:*

1.The source for the list of casualties to be read out is here: www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=538489

Another reliable source of statistics:

www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2012...cn/tw_ec/gaza_abacus

2.Contacts for further information:

*WM PSC:*

Brian Sheridan 0784 516 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Chris Khamis0778 534 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Naeem Malik0772 142 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

*University of Birmingham Students for Justice in Palestine:*

April Reilly0798 072 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

3.WM PSC website: www.westmidspsc.org/

UoB Students for Justice in Palestine Facebook page:

www.facebook.com/groups/25314630632/

THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE are taking part in an anti-austerity march in Dublin city this afternoon.

The demonstration, organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, is protesting cutbacks ahead of the Budget this 5 December.

Gardaí have estimated that about 8,000 protesters have taken to the streets so far, while other sources say up to 18,000 are demonstrating.

The march started out being led by a woman on a horse dressed in a black cloak, resembling the figure of the grim reaper.

Various different groups are attending the march including Siptu, Shell to Sea, the Socialist Party and the United Left Alliance. Protests are being made against various austerity measures, property tax, and evictions.

Protesters were heard to chant: “Enda you won’t break our backs, we’re not paying a property tax”, and “Phil Hogan have you heard, we’re not paying we’re not scared.”

One man held a sign which read: “Enda, do you like the gathering?”

At about 3.30pm, Michael O’Reilly of the Dublin Council of Trade Unions addressed the crowd and asked everyone present to join him outside Dáil Eireann at 4pm on budget day.

BEIJING — Two dozen Tibetans have set themselves on fire in western China this month in a dramatic acceleration of the protests against authoritarian Chinese rule, activist groups say.

The surge in self-immolations, along with an increase in large demonstrations, marks a new phase in the Tibetan protests.