URGENT: Our friend Omar Barghouti is being persecuted

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The Israeli government thinks they can get away with this. And as a whole movement - truly globally - we need to show them that they can’t.

logo Our friend Omar Barghouti has been banned from travelling out of Israel/Palestine

Our friend and partner Omar Barghouti has been banned from leaving Israel/Palestine -- tell Secretary John Kerry that he must intervene.

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Dear PAOV,

Yesterday, news broke that the Israeli government has refused to renew travel documents for our friend and partner Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement -- effectively banning him from leaving Israel/Palestine.

This is a blatant violation of Barghouti’s basic rights. And it marks another low in Israel’s repression, intimidation and criminalization of Palestinian human rights activists.

The Israeli government thinks they can get away with this. And as a whole movement - truly globally - we need to show them that they can’t.

JVP, CodePink, and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation are calling on Secretary of State John Kerry to protect the rights of human rights activists. Given US military, diplomatic, and economic aid to Israel, Kerry has the power to intervene on behalf of the Obama administration against Israel's persecution of political leaders.

And we need to make him use that power. We've set an ambitious goal - we want to get 20,000 signatures by the end of this week - because this is more than just an attack on one political leader. It's an attack on the right to nonviolently organize for justice, freedom, and equality.

Can you be one our of 20,000 voices for human rights right away? Click here to email Secretary Kerry.

This travel ban is a textbook example of the stranglehold that the Israeli government holds over every aspect of life for Palestinians. And it’s just one more facet of their attacks on the right to boycott. Successive Israeli governments have proven they will do all they can to deny and destroy nonviolent tools of protest, even though boycotts have for decades been a vital component of struggles for justice.

From state legislatures to the U.S. Congress, from college administrators to Presidential candidates -- the Israeli government and its backers here in the U.S. are attempting to legislate and intimidate the Palestinian-led movement for equality and freedom. Their attacks get more vicious as our movement for justice gets stronger.

So it’s no surprise the Israeli government is coming for perhaps the most recognizable voice within the global movement for BDS.

Tell Secretary Kerry -- you must intervene with the Israeli government.

They're doing this because we’re winning. Plain and simple, this is repression in the face of a social justice movement that is quickly gaining steam. From G4S to the Unitarian Universalist Church to the United Nations to Ahava to literally dozens and dozens of other successful campaigns around the globe.

Denying Barghouti’s right to movement is another dangerous escalation of intimidation by the Israeli government against Palestinian human rights activists. As Amnesty International noted with alarm just last month, Israel is ramping up its targeting of human rights activists like Barghouti for arbitrary arrest, detention, imprisonment, injury, and torture.

In March, at an anti-BDS conference in Jerusalem, Israeli Minister Yisrael Katz even called on the government to engage in “targeted civil eliminations” of BDS leaders with the help of Israeli intelligence.

That's what they’re saying in public.

These horrifying threats and clear acts of repression cannot stand. When the Israeli government attempts to silence and criminalize activism to end occupation, discrimination, and apartheid, we will not be silent. In fact, we will be -- must be -- louder than ever.

Click here now, and let’s flood Secretary Kerry’s office with tens of thousands of messages demanding that the US force the Israeli government to back off this outrageous political attack.

Towards justice,

Rebecca

Rebecca Vilkomerson
Executive Director

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