Oproep van Britse vakbond aan G4S: stop contracten met Israel

UK union head calls on G4S to end Israel contracts, Asa Winstanley 15-10-2013


G4S’s complicity with human rights abuses has united different campaigns.
 (Aimee Valinski)

One of the UK’s biggest unions on Friday called for controversial security firm G4S to pull out of Israel. The British-Danish security giant has been a major target for activists because of its involvement with several Israeli prisons.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of UNISON, wrote to G4S arguing:

I understand that your activities in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories only account for approximately one percent of G4S profits.

However, I believe that the reputational risks that these activities pose for your company are far greater [than profit] and I would urge you withdraw now from doing business in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

In the press release announcing Prentis’ letter to G4S’s chief executive Ashley Almanza, UNISON listed the giant firm’s complicity.

It provides security for Ketziot and Megiddo prisons in Israel, to which Palestinians are transferred in breach of the Geneva convention’s stipulation not to detail prisoners outside an occupied territory. It runs the central command room at Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank, and runs security systems at Kishon and Jerusalem detention centers, where there is evidence that Palestinians are tortured.

Zie verder: UK Union head calls G4S