Tell Bill Gates: Divest from Israel's Torture of Palestinians!

Details: Published on Thursday, 10 April 2014 11:20; Written by editor

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Thursday, April 3, 2014

Urge Gates Foundation to Divest from Security Company G4S

Dear Edwin,

Palestinian human rights groups released an open letter today calling on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the biggest charitable foundation in the world, to end its investment in G4S, a British private security company that helps Israel run prisons where Palestinian political prisoners are detained.

Each year, the Israeli army arrests thousands of Palestinians in an attempt to suppress any opposition to its continued occupation and apartheid policies. They are arrested under Israeli military orders that prohibit basic civil, cultural, and political rights such as the attendance of demonstrations, membership of political organizations, and the writing of slogans on the Apartheid Wall. According to Addameer: Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, more than 5,000 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, including 183 children and 175 held under administrative detention, a form of detention without trial that Israel uses to hold Palestinians indefinitely on secret information. Since 1967, 73 Palestinian detainees have died as a result of torture while under Israeli interrogation, the most recent of which was Arafat Jaradat, who was tortured to death in a G4S-secured interrogation center in February 2013.

With Palestinian Prisoners' Day approaching on April 17, Addameer and the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) are calling on people of conscience worldwide to take action in solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners.

Sign the petition to Bill Gates: Divest from Israel’s torture of Palestinians!

Post these #StopG4S graphics on your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and other social networks. Click here to share the image below with your Facebook friends.

Tell the Gates Foundation to divest via Twitter and Facebook. Tweet @gatesfoundation and use #StopG4S. Post a message on their Facebook page.

Watch and share G4S: Securing War Crimes.

The Gates Foundation owns shares in G4S worth more than $170 million. The foundation claims it is “guided by the belief that every life has equal value” and that it uses its investments to fund projects that “help all people lead healthy, productive lives”. But through its holdings in G4S, it is legitimizing and profiting from Israel’s use of torture and mass incarceration.

A recent legal study found that G4S has “failed to demonstrate a genuine commitment to comply with international law in good faith” and urges investors to contemplate “unparalleled risk to their investment in a business activity whose profit model is conflict-dependent and potentially illegal.”

Outside of Israel, G4S is notorious for operating private prisons and providing deportation services worldwide. In the U.S., G4S operates privatized juvenile detention facilities and works alongside Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection to detain and deport people across the U.S./Mexico border.

The Gates Foundation can afford not to invest in such grave human rights violations.

Thanks for taking action.

Ramah Kudaimi
Membership and Outreach Coordinator

Edwin, take these actions:

1. Sign the petition to Bill Gates: Divest from Israel’s torture of Palestinians!

2. Watch and share G4S: Securing War Crimes.

3. Share this alert with your friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter.

Your support helps us strengthen our coalition's BDS work and efforts to change U.S. policy to support human rights, international law, and equality.

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