A group of UK-based anti-apartheid organizations, led by Friends of Al-Aqsa (FOA), have submitted a petition to Downing Street urging the British Prime Minister to scrap the anti-BDS Bill and instead protect the #RightToBoycott in the UK.
The group includes the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions UK, the Stop the War Coalition, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Amos Trust, Liberal Democrats Friends of Palestine and Conservative Friends of Palestine.
“The right of public bodies to boycott and divest from those who abuse human rights and fail to comply with international law must be upheld” reads the petition. “In a free society, public bodies must retain the right to make ethical choices”.
“This is worrying legislation,” says Shamiul Joarder, Head of Public Affairs at FOA. “Public bodies must retain the right to boycott and divest from those complicit in Israeli apartheid.”
“This is a first step towards criminalizing the individual right to BDS in the UK, and part of a wider crackdown on anything that opposes government policy, as seen by the Public Order Bill which allows police to shut down protests that are ‘too noisy’,” Joarder concluded.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
