The following letter has been sent by email and registered mail to Mary Anne Yule, President & CEO, HP Canada
Mary Anne Yule, President/CEO
HP Canada
5150 Spectrum Way #600
Mississauga, ON L4W 5G1
Sent by email & registered mail
15 July 2019
Dear Ms. Yule
We are writing to you to demand that Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc. end your involvement in Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian rights and system of military occupation, racial segregation and oppression.
We write as to you Ms. Yule as the CEO and President of HP Canada asking you to take leadership. We ask HP Canada to Listen Up. We remind you that:
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion fifteen years ago on July 9, 2004 ruled that Israel’s building of a barrier in the occupied Palestinian territory is illegal and said construction must stop immediately and Israel should make reparations for any damage caused.
June 9, 2004: The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion today that Israel’s building of a barrier in the occupied Palestinian territory is illegal and said construction must stop immediately and Israel should make reparations for any damage caused.
Just as many companies profited in the past from the South African apartheid regime, HP companies are today profiting from Israeli apartheid. Increasingly around the world, HP stands for harming Palestinians among churches and unions representing millions from India to the UK and from the US to Malaysia. In Canada, organizations are declaring themselves HP Free, and individuals pledging to not buy HP going forward.
Today marks a year since the Israeli parliament adopted the Jewish Nation-State Law, conveying constitutional status to its apartheid regime against Palestinian citizens of Israel. We are marking this occasion by strengthening the struggle against Israel’s apartheid, occupation and colonization against Palestinians and against complicit corporations, like yours, that enable this system of oppression to continue.
Both HP Inc. and HPE have ongoing ties with Israel that entrench its daily human rights violations. HPE provides the exclusive Itanium servers for the Aviv System of Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority. This system is the backbone of the apartheid regime that racially discriminates against Palestinians and other non-Jewish citizens of Israel, treated as second-class citizens.
This apartheid is at its worst when it comes to Palestinian ‘residents’ of occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem, whose basic rights can be revoked arbitrarily.
HP Inc. provides computer hardware to the Israeli army, that maintains the illegal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
HPE also maintains the Yesha database, which compiles information on Israeli citizens in illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, which are condemned under international law as war crimes.
Both companies, in their communication, mention human rights as a core value to their work. And yet, they maintain these criminal ties and profit from Israel’s racism and violent denial of Palestinian human rights.
Until HP-branded companies convincingly end their ties in Israel’s crimes and respect their own commitment to the essential values of human rights and international law, we shall continue to boycott and divest from them. This is part of our moral obligation to support the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality.
In Canada, the legislation, the War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity Legislation provides a direct accountability of the Rome Statues and International Humanitarian Law to the Canadian law including the Criminal Code. We trust you will consider your accountability under international law as well as domestic law, regarding the Fourth Geneva Convention within the context of HP in Canada
We would welcome the opportunity to talk with you and your Canadian management team, Ms. Yule. We did write to you in March 2017, but you provided no response. The letter is attached for your information. We continue to look to you to take leadership within HP Canada; leadership to speak out against violations of International Humanitarian Law and abuses of human rights associated with HP technology infrastructure that Israel uses to maintain its system of apartheid and settler colonization over the Palestinian people.
Sincerely,
Karen Rodman on behalf of
The Canadian BDS Coalition
Copy to:
Antonio Neri, Chief Executive Officer
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
6280 America Center Dr.
San Jose, CA, USA
(antonio@hpe.com & antonio.neri@hpe.com)
Dion Weisler, Chief Executive Officer
HP Inc.
1501 Page Mill Road
Palo Alto, CA 94304
Links:
https://www.icj-cij.org/
HP Canada: Listen Up…
https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-hp
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-45.9/
March 19, 2017
Mary Anne Yule,
President and CEO at HP Canada
5150 Spectrum Way #600,
Mississauga, Ontario L4W 5G1
Meg Whitman,
President and CEO, HPE
Canadian HPE HQ
5150 Spectrum Way, Floor 4-5
Mississauga, Ontario L4W 5G1
Delivered by Registered Mail
Dear Ms. Yule and Ms. Whitman,
Canadian citizens concerned about International Humanitarian Law violations and human right abuses are among the more than 1.8 million people who have signed a petition calling on Hewlett Packard (HP) and Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE) to end its role in Israeli apartheid and settler colonialism.
We write to you, as the Presidents and CEOs at HP Canada and HPE to let you know that we are concerned, and look to you to take leadership within HP Canada and HEP; leadership to speak out against the violations of International Humanitarian Law and abuses of human rights associated with HP/HPE technology infrastructure that Israel uses to maintain its system of apartheid and settler colonialism over the Palestinian people.
From November 25 to December 3, 2016, a Global Week of Action took place that led to over 150 actions in over 100 cities on six continents. These actions highlighted HP/HPE’s provision of key services and technology infrastructure that enables the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian lands and suppression of Palestinian human rights.
We write to make you aware that Canadians took part in these actions in several cities across the country, as well as through social media actions. We are hearing from consumers that they are concerned about the social actions of HP/HPE.
Canadians like people across the world will continue this action, with the hope they can show you, that enabling Israeli apartheid is bad for business. Just as companies like Veolia and G4S have stepped away from Israeli contracts following worldwide BDS campaigns, so too can the HP companies — especially if HP/HPE wants to begin to live up to its stated principles of global citizenship that fulfills its “responsibility to society by being an economic, intellectual and social asset to each country and community where they do business.”
The campaign against HP was launched quite recently but has already achieved some important successes.
South African Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote, “I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid.”
In the 1970s, there was a similar campaign targeting Polaroid for likewise providing imaging services used by the South African apartheid government’s racist ID system. Procurement decisions led to Polaroid eventually withdrawing from Apartheid South Africa along with other corporations — something widely acknowledged today as speeding the fall of that brutal system of oppression. Leaders of the Polaroid campaign are today calling for a boycott of HP.
Recently a professional poll has indicated that our government’s policy on Israel is out of touch with the Canadian public’s opinion. Most Canadians say sanctions and boycott are reasonable measures to defend Palestinian rights.
We expect you to show just leadership and stand on the right side of history to end your company’s complicity with Israeli oppression.
We would be glad to meet with you in this regard.
Respectively signed by friends and members of the Canadian BDS Coalition:
Independent Jewish Voices – Winnipeg
Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU) – Montreal
Justice for Palestinians, Calgary
United Network for Justice and Peace in Palestine and Israel (UNJPPI)
Canada Palestine Association, Vancouver
Palestinian Solidarity Working Group, Sudbury
Peace of Peace, London
University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) & Durham College
Students for Justice for Palestinians
Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundations (BBCF)
Palestine Solidarity Network-Edmonton
CODEPINK
Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) – Toronto
Actions for Palestine- Toronto
Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid-Victoria
Canadian Unitarians for Social Justice
Christian Peacemaker Teams – Ontario
Independent Jewish Voices, Canada
Solidarity with Palestine, St. John’s, Newfoundland
“Divesting From Injustice”, Desmond Tutu, Archbisop Emeritus of Cape Town, June 13, 2010, The WorldPost, URL: www.huffingtonpost.com/desmond-tutu/divesting-from-injustice_b_534994.html
Video: “What Makes HP an Important Boycott Target? feat. anti-Apartheid activist Caroline Hunter [Part1 of 2]”, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, URL: youtu.be/FA-Ot-OpQlM
See results at: http://www.cjpme.org/survey and http://ijvcanada.org/2017/2017-israel-palestine-bds-survey/