The Canadian BDS Coalition was one of almost 30 organizations in Canada, including unions, student associations and social justice groups, who endorsed this letter to Puma calling on them to end their sponsorship of the Israel Football Association. (le français suit)
December 9, 2020
Mr. Maguire, Senior VP, Canada Mr. Philion, CEO, Puma North America
People in Canada have recently come together to send the message that we should all be concerned about Puma’s involvement in violations of international law and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. Folks from Vancouver to Calgary to Toronto have gone on social media to express their concerns and to say #BoycottPuma until it stops legitimizing Israeli apartheid.
Why? Because Puma is the main sponsor of the Israel Football Association (IFA), which includes teams in Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land. In addition, Puma’s exclusive licensee in Israel is Delta Galil Industries, which has branches in those same illegal Israeli settlements.
We join with other consumers in Canada and around the world in letting you know that we will not purchase Puma products until the company stops these unethical practices, and until the Puma logo is no longer featured on the website for the Israel Football Association. The first sentence in your “Code of Conduct” is “Puma respects human rights”; we call on Puma to live up to that commitment.
Sincerely, BDS Vancouver-Coast Salish Canada Palestine Association
Endorsed by: Canadian Union of Postal Workers CUPW-STTP Vancouver & District Labour Council Bayan Canada BDS Québec Canada Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights Canadian BDS Coalition CanPalNet (Canada-Palestine Support Network) Independent Jewish Voices Vancouver IJV Vancouver Youth Bloc International League of Peoples’ Struggle ILPS Canada/Ligue internationale de lutte des peuples Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement pour une Paix Juste MidIslanders for Justice and Peace in the Middle East Niagara Movement for Justice in Palestine-Israel (NMJPI) Oakville Palestinian Rights Association OPRA PAJU Palestinian and Jewish Unity/Palestiniens et Juifs unis Palestine House (Palestinian Canadian Community Centre) Palestine Solidarity Working Group-Sudbury Palestinian Youth Movement – Toronto Palestinian Youth Movement – Vancouver Peace Alliance Winnipeg Regina Peace Council Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights – Queen’s University Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights-SPHR McMaster Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights – UBC Students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights McGill Sulong UBC University of Toronto Students Against Israeli Apartheid Young Communist League Vancouver
____________________________________________
Monsieur Maguire, Vice-président senior, Canada Monsieur Philion, PDG, Amérique du nord
De nombreuses personnes au Canada se sont récemment réunies pour signaler que nous devrions tous nous inquiéter de l’implication de Puma dans des violations du droit international et des droits légitimes du peuple palestinien. Des citoyens de Vancouver à Toronto, en passant par Calgary, ont utilisé les médias sociaux pour exprimer leurs inquiétudes et dire #BoycottPuma jusqu’à tant que l’entreprise cesse de légitimer l’apartheid israélien.
Pourquoi? Parce que Puma est le principal sponsor de l’Association israélienne de football (IFA), laquelle comprend des équipes dans les colonies illégales d’Israël situées sur les terres palestiniennes occupées. En outre, Delta Galil Industries, titulaire exclusif de la licence Puma en Israël, possède des succursales dans ces mêmes colonies israéliennes illégales.
Nous nous joignons à d’autres consommateurs au Canada et dans le monde pour vous informer que nous n’achèterons pas de produits Puma tant que votre entreprise n’aura pas mis fin à ses pratiques contraires à l’éthique, et tant que le logo de Puma restera affiché sur le site Web de l’Association israélienne de football. La première phrase de votre « Code de conduite » est : « Puma respecte les droits de la personne ».
Nous appelons Puma à se montrer à la hauteur de cet engagement.
Cordialement,
BDS Vancouver-Coast Salish Canada Palestine Association
Update – Puma responds, and here’s the reply: Still Keeping Puma out of our Shopping Cart!
Article carried in Canada Files on the Boycott Puma campaign
The Trudeau government’s complicity gives Israel carte blanche to commit human right abuses and international law violations without impunity.
Under Article 1 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, all High Contracting Parties, which includes Canada, are required to take action to ensure respect for the Convention “in all circumstances.”
In this circumstance, at the very least, the transfer of Mahmoud, as is the case of other prisioners, as a civilian from the occupied area to the occupier’s own territory is a war crime as defined by the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49.
Let us remind the Canadian government that the Fourth Geneva Convention provides for the protection of civilians who find themselves under the rule of a foreign power in the event of an international and internal conflict.
The Fourth Geneva Convention is based on the universally accepted principle that parties to a conflict should ensure that people living in an occupied territory should continue to live in as normal a manner as possible and in accordance with their laws, customs and traditions.
Articles 42 and 78 of the Fourth Geneva Convention permit administrative detention only if the security of the Detaining Power makes it absolutely necessary.The practice of administrative detention by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory contravenes fundamental human rights. Israel uses administrative detention in a highly arbitrary manner without even basic safeguards in place which also leads to other, grave human rights violations. The Canadian government needs to stop providing impunity to Israel, and to call for administrative detainees that are held on account of their political views or their activities carried out in resistance to the occupation be released promptly and unconditionally.
Background of Mahmoud Nawajaa’s detention
#FreeMahmoud #BDS
Mahmoud Nawajaa, a prominent Palestinian human rights defender, has been dragged away from his family by Israeli occupation forces in a night raid on Thursday July 30 and is currently held in Israel’s Jalameh high-security interrogation center, denied access to lawyers.
Mahmoud’s arrest comes in the context of Israel’s plans for de jure annexation of much of the occupied Palestinian West Bank, on top of its decades-long de facto annexation and apartheid. His arrest is part of Israel’s attempts to clamp down on human rights defenders, such as Mahmoud, and constitutes yet another element of Israel’s apartheid regime.
Mahmoud is one of the more than 4,700 Palestinian prisioners in Israeli jails. In the current circumstances, with the COVID19 virus spreading, mass detention aggravates health and safety risks to all detainees, adding to the common culture of torture and degrading as well as inhumane treatment of Palestinians in Israeli jails.
The Canadian context:
The Trudeau Liberal Government has expressed that it does not support boycotts, divestments or sanctions, despite these actions and opinions being civil liberties and constitutional rights.
Over 60 federal members of parliament have said they are against further annexation of the “West Bank” of Palestine.
Canada touted itself as the world leader who would help countries fight and recover from Covid-19, during its bid for the United Nations Security Seat, but this does not seem to extend to Palestine, nor Palestinian prisoners.
Under Article 1 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, all High Contracting Parties, which includes Canada, are required to take action to ensure respect for the Convention “in all circumstances.”
As the coronavirus pandemic spreads, Puma’s already deeply immoral support for Israel’s ever-expanding illegal settlements takes on a more sinister dimension. Puma’s exclusive licensee in Israel, Delta, was listed in the UN database of complicit settlement companies. The UN considers all Israeli settlements in the occupied territory a war crime.
As we mentioned in our email and registered letter to you in October 2019, we are still waiting for a response to the email sent to you on June 11, 2019.
We had appreciated your response to our earlier email, but it left several questions, thus our email back to you on June 11, 2019. We still would ask for a response to the following:
Are you saying that there is no support of any kind that goes to the Israel Football Association (IFA)? You mention that support does go to Israeli National Teams. Which teams are these? You also mention support to football club Hapoel Beer Sheva. As well, you mention NO support goes to the Israeli Premier/Japanika League. We would ask you to clarify and make a definitive statement that NO support has gone to the Israel Football Association.
The Israel Football Association has teams in Israeli settlement in occupied Palestine, which is part of the territory of the Palestinian affiliate. This is occupied territory under international humanitarian law (the Fourth Geneva Convention). The international call to PUMA is to withdraw support to the Israeli Football Association until it withdraws teams from these illegally occupied lands. If there has been no support to the Israel Football Association in any form from PUMA including through local distribution partners, we would welcome that news. It is not clear in your message that this is the case, so we would appreciate further information in this regard. If PUMA is announcing its withdraw of funding from the Israel Football Association through your correspondence would you please make this clear, and also indicate if you will be making a public notification in this regard.
As the coronavirus pandemic spreads, Puma’s already deeply immoral support for Israel’s ever-expanding illegal settlements takes on a more sinister dimension. Puma’s exclusive licensee in Israel, Delta, was listed in the UN database of complicit settlement companies. The UN considers all Israeli settlements in the occupied territory a war crime.
Puma shareholders should also know that supporting Israeli apartheid comes with costs!
A Puma attorney recently admitted to a Palestinian rights supporter that the #BoycottPuma campaign is making their lives “miserable.”
See the letter provided to the CEO of Puma from 200 Palestinian sports teams. We provide this again to you, and ask you to take leadership to speak to the CEO and other leadership of Puma to insist that Puma to end its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association (IFA) due to its deep complicity in Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian human rights.
Israel’s settlement enterprise and associated military checkpoints and walls force Palestinian families from their homes, limit access to clean water and impede travel to hospitals and clinics. Puma’s claim of a “devotion to universal equality” could not ring more hollow.
In January, Ms. Dion, you were afraid of the sitution in Lebanon so you cancelled your July concert!
Seems BDS is a scary thing for someone bound and bent on playing to APARTHEID.
Check out the letter sent in November 2019 by over 50 artitsts to Ms. Dion coordianted by the Canadian BDS Coalition. Even though we did hear back Ms. Dion , maybe your handlers did hear your fellow artists, and decided the situation in Beirut would not look good for you as BDS call mounted on July 31, just before your August 4-5 concerts in Tel Aviv?
Individuals wishing to write to Ms. Dion can do so HERE. Thanks CJPME for this campaign. There are close to 5K signatures.
Artists who wish to join in adding their name to the call to Ms. Dion can continue do so HERE.
Beyond the November call from fellow artists, Ms. Dion heard direclty from Palestinian artists and form Israeli citizens.
The Canadian BDS Coalition call to Canadian artist Céline Dion
Céline, the Canadian BDS Coalition would welcome your response, which we would be pleased to convey to your fellow artists. We would also welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss the situation in Palestine and the art washing under Brand Israel. We expect more artists will join in the call. We also understand you have received a letter from Palestinian artists directly. Read more HERE
The Beruit concert would have seen BDS actions mounting as Ms. Dion prepared to play her APARTHEID concert.
Why did you not choose to share info on your own official site Ms. Dion?
Of course your current North American concerts are cancelled, or as you say “going to be rescheduled.” One would expect you would also be cancelling your European concerts shortly given situation with Covid-19.
We did notice that you quietly backed out of Beirut.
A signal that you were afraid of the mounting BDS call for you to cancel your Tel Aviv aparthied concerts scheduled for several days later! Seems you left it to venue to announce, rather than you making your own statement!
In the upcoming Canadian general election scheduled for October 21, 2019, we commit to vote for candidates and parties that: • Support Palestinian human and national rights including the inalienable right to self-determination. • Oppose Israeli ethnic cleansing, war crimes and apartheid. • Recognize the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality. • Respect, protect and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194. • Support ending Israeli occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall. • Oppose Canadian tax-deductible status for the Jewish National Fund JNF, HESEG Foundation and all Zionist organizations that are disguised as charities while supporting the Israeli military and settlements. • Recognize the rights of Canadians to support the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions BDS movement as a non-violent strategy to force Israel to abide by UN resolutions and all international humanitarian laws, and • Oppose condemning or criminalizing people or organizations who support the BDS Movement.
JE VOTE POUR LA LIBERTÉ, LA JUSTICE ET L’ÉGALITÉ REJOIGNEZ CETTE PAGE D’ÉVÉNEMENT FB ET PRENEZ UN ENGAGEMENT #IVotePalestine Lors des prochaines élections générales au Canada, prévues pour le 21 octobre 2019, nous nous engageons à voter pour les candidats et les partis qui: • Soutiennent les droits de l’homme et les droits nationaux des Palestiniens, y compris le droit inaliénable à l’autodétermination. • S’opposent au nettoyage ethnique israélien, aux crimes de guerre et à l’apartheid. • Reconnaissent les droits fondamentaux des citoyens et citoyennes arabo-palestiniens d’Israël à la pleine égalité. • Respectent, protègent et promeuvent le droit de retour des réfugiés palestiniens et la repossession de leurs propriétés, conformément à la résolution 194 des Nations Unies. • Supportent la fin de l’occupation israélienne et de la colonisation de toutes les terres arabes ainsi que le démantèlement du mur. • S’opposent au statut d’organisme de bienfaisance, déductible d’ impôts au Canada, pour le Fonds national juif ( FNJ), la Fondation HESEG, et toutes les organisations sionistes déguisées en œuvres de charité qui soutiennent l’armée israélienne et les colonies de peuplement. • Reconnaissent le droit des Canadiens d’appuyer le mouvement BDS (Boycott Désinvestissement et Sanctions) en tant que stratégie non violente pour forcer Israël à se conformer aux résolutions de l’ONU et à l’ensemble du droit international humanitaire, et • S’opposent à la condamnation ou à la criminalisation des personnes ou des organisations qui soutiennent le mouvement BDS.
Here are the hosts and endorsers of the campaign
Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians
APAC – Association of Palestinian Arab Canadians
Canada Palestine Association
Canadian BDS Coalition
Canadian Unitarians for Social Justice
Coalition against Israeli Apartheid, Victoria
Independent Jewish Voices
Independent Jewish Voices – Winnipeg
Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste
Justice for Palestinians, Calgary
Mid-Islanders for Justice and Peace in the Middle East
Oakville Palestinian Rights Association OPRA
OPIRG Guelph
Palestine Just Trade
Palestine Solidarity Working Group (Sudbury)
Palestinian and Jewish Unity (Montreal)
Palestinian Canadian Congress
Peace Alliance Winnipeg
Regina Peace Council
Socialist Action
St. John’s Solidarity with Palestine
United for Palestine – Toronto/GTA
This event page will update voters on the positions of individual candidates and parties regarding these issues.
PRINT to provide to candidates seeking your vote. Let them know what is important to securing your vote.
Write to your local candidates. CLICK HERE to download letter which you can customize.
To find your candidates check out Election Canada and then in order to find candidate info for your riding go to specific political parties through the links provided.
You can also find candidates for the following parties at the links:
In the upcoming Canadian general election scheduled for October 21, 2019, we commit to vote for candidates and parties that: • Support Palestinian human and national rights including the inalienable right to self-determination. • Oppose Israeli ethnic cleansing, war crimes and apartheid. • Recognize the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality. • Respect, protect and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194. • Support ending Israeli occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall. • Oppose Canadian tax-deductible status for the Jewish National Fund JNF, HESEG Foundation and all Zionist organizations that are disguised as charities while supporting the Israeli military and settlements. • Recognize the rights of Canadians to support the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions BDS movement as a non-violent strategy to force Israel to abide by UN resolutions and all international humanitarian laws, and • Oppose condemning or criminalizing people or organizations who support the BDS Movement.
JE VOTE POUR LA LIBERTÉ, LA JUSTICE ET L’ÉGALITÉ REJOIGNEZ CETTE PAGE D’ÉVÉNEMENT FB ET PRENEZ UN ENGAGEMENT #IVotePalestine Lors des prochaines élections générales au Canada, prévues pour le 21 octobre 2019, nous nous engageons à voter pour les candidats et les partis qui: • Soutiennent les droits de l’homme et les droits nationaux des Palestiniens, y compris le droit inaliénable à l’autodétermination. • S’opposent au nettoyage ethnique israélien, aux crimes de guerre et à l’apartheid. • Reconnaissent les droits fondamentaux des citoyens et citoyennes arabo-palestiniens d’Israël à la pleine égalité. • Respectent, protègent et promeuvent le droit de retour des réfugiés palestiniens et la repossession de leurs propriétés, conformément à la résolution 194 des Nations Unies. • Supportent la fin de l’occupation israélienne et de la colonisation de toutes les terres arabes ainsi que le démantèlement du mur. • S’opposent au statut d’organisme de bienfaisance, déductible d’ impôts au Canada, pour le Fonds national juif ( FNJ), la Fondation HESEG, et toutes les organisations sionistes déguisées en œuvres de charité qui soutiennent l’armée israélienne et les colonies de peuplement. • Reconnaissent le droit des Canadiens d’appuyer le mouvement BDS (Boycott Désinvestissement et Sanctions) en tant que stratégie non violente pour forcer Israël à se conformer aux résolutions de l’ONU et à l’ensemble du droit international humanitaire, et • S’opposent à la condamnation ou à la criminalisation des personnes ou des organisations qui soutiennent le mouvement BDS.
Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians
APAC – Association of Palestinian Arab Canadians
Canada Palestine Association
Canadian BDS Coalition
Canadian Unitarians for Social Justice
Coalition against Israeli Apartheid, Victoria
Independent Jewish Voices
Independent Jewish Voices – Winnipeg
Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste
Justice for Palestinians, Calgary
Mid-Islanders for Justice and Peace in the Middle East
Oakville Palestinian Rights Association OPRA
OPIRG Guelph
Palestine Just Trade
Palestine Solidarity Working Group (Sudbury)
Palestinian and Jewish Unity (Montreal)
Palestinian Canadian Congress
Peace Alliance Winnipeg
Regina Peace Council
Socialist Action
St. John’s Solidarity with Palestine
United for Palestine – Toronto/GTA
This event page will update voters on the positions of individual candidates and parties regarding these issues.
PRINT to provide to candidates seeking your vote. Let them know what is important to securing your vote.
Write to your local candidates. CLICK HERE to download letter which you can customize.
To find your candidates check out Election Canada and then in order to find candidate info for your riding go to specific political parties through the links provided.
You can also find candidates for the following parties at the links:
HP-branded corporations play key roles in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. They are complicit in Israel’s occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid regime. They provide computer hardware to the Israeli army and maintain data centers through their servers for the Israeli police. They provide the Itanium servers to operate the Aviv System, the computerized database of Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority. This forms the backbone of Israel’s racial segregation and apartheid. BDS. Read more
Organizations, Workplaces, Unions, Faith Groups
Declare your organization, your workplace, your union, your faith group, or your home HP Free.
You can declare your organization HP-Free by either:
i) having NO HP equipment & pledging to NOT buy any HP equipement
ii) by pledging to not buy HP equipment, and marking the equipment you presently as “THIS IS MY LAST HP”
The Canadian BDS Coalition joins in the BDS Vancouver campaign Boycott TEVA-Apartheid is Bad Medicine. LIKE the FACEBOOK PAGE to follow the campaign.
Boycott TEVA, the Israeli pharmaceutical company that is one of the largest generic drug manufacturers in the world.
Order a strip of our “No TEVA” stickers for free by clicking on the Send Message button at the top right of this page and letting us know where to send your Boycott TEVA kit. Or just tell your regular pharmacy to put a permanent “No TEVA” note on your file!
Who Profits provides the following information regarding Teva, a global pharmaceutical company and the world’s largest generic drug manufacturer. The company develops, produces and markets generic, innovative and branded drugs. Teva currently operates in approximately 60 countries with an estimated 45,000 employees worldwide.
Teva is the largest commercial (and industrial) company on the Israeli market by equity, net profit, operating income and market value. The company is also the largest provider of healthcare products and services in the Israeli market, by sales volume. Teva distributes healthcare products and services, including consumer healthcare products, hospital supplies, dialysis equipment and disposables, diagnostics and home care services. An Israeli subsidiary – Salomon, Levin and Elstein, provides logistical support for Teva’s sales and distribution activities in Israel, including the distribution of third parties of several multinational pharmaceutical companies. READ MORE on WHO PROFITS about TEVA.
“Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. agreed to pay $85 million to settle an Oklahoma lawsuit…Oklahoma said J&J and Teva helped create a public-health crisis from opioid abuse that killed thousands of its residents.” Read more HERE.
TEVA is also BigPharma and has been recently named in an anti-trust lawsuit in the U.S., as helping to “mastermind a sweeping conspiracy among generic drugmakers to raise the price of medicines” Read more HERE.
Tell TripAdvisor to pull out of illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine
The Canadian BDS Coalition stands in solidarity with Amnesty International TripAdvisor campaign to
Ask Stephen Kaufer, CEO of TripAdvisor Inc. to stop listing or promoting properties, activities and attractions located in illegal Israeli settlements or run by settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
TripAdvisor lists more than 70 different properties, activities and attractions in illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). By doing so, TripAdvisor is boosting the settlement economy and contributing to settlement expansion. The company’s promotion of settlements as a tourist destination helps to “normalise” and legitimise them to the public. Settlements are illegal under international law – their creation amounts to a war crime. Settlements are on stolen Palestinian land. They should not be tourist destinations.
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.
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
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
