SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22nd, 1pm
Indigo Bookstore
Corner of St. Catherine & McGill College
(metro McGill)
Montreal, Canada

Between September 16th and 18th, 1982, Israeli military forces in Lebanon, under the direct command Ariel Sharon, former ‘Defense Minister’ of Israel, provided military logistics for the massacre of thousands of Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila by the right-wing Phalangists militia of Lebanon.

Twenty-five years ago Ariel Sharon hatched a massacre plan with the militia units of the Lebanese Phalangists, who entered the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps under Israeli watch. 1500 Lebanese militiamen assembled at Beirut’s International Airport, then under Israeli occupation, quickly moving in on the civilian refugee camp, where for an estimated 36 to 48 hours, the Phalangists massacred the inhabitants of the camps, while the Israeli military guarded the exits and provided light flares in the night.

Until today no military commanders or officials behind the massacre have been held accountable for the crimes against humanity committed in Beirut twenty-five years ago in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila. Total impunity for both the Israeli military commanders and Lebanese right-wing militia members continues until today, as the thousands of Palestinian civilian victims of Sabra and Chatila remain buried in a mass grave in Beirut, Lebanon.

In commemoration of the thousands of Palestinian victims of 1982 and in protest of the continuing assault on the basic rights of the Palestinian people throughout the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and recently in the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp of Northern Lebanon, the Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine, in collaboration with the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid and Tadamon! Montreal is calling for a picket and rally.

This day of action in Montreal will mark the 25th picket organized at Indigo bookstore in downtown Montreal, as part of the Canada-wide campaign to boycott Chapters/Indigo bookstore. The campaign, launched in December 2006, opposes the support that Heather Reisman and Gerry Schwartz, the majority shareholders of Indigo/Chapters, give to Israel. Across Canada a growing number of people are supporting the boycott Chapters/Indigo campaign in the context of the international campaign to push for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the apartheid state of Israel.

Reisman and Schwartz have established the controversial “HESEG Foundation for Lone Soldiers”, a program of financial support for former ‘lone soldiers’, non-Israelis who fight in the Israeli military, in defense of apartheid and occupation. Israeli ‘lone soldiers’ participated in the 2006 devastating military attack on the people of Lebanon and continue to enforce the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Join us in remembering Sabra and Chatila in protest of continuing Israeli apartheid!

* the Coalition for Justice & Peace in Palestine
web: http://www.cjpp.org

* the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid.
email: bdsmontreal at gmail.com
tel: + 514 941 9792

* Tadamon! Montreal.
email: tadamon at resist.ca
tel: + 514 664 1036
web: http://www.tadamon.ca

For more information about the boycott of Indigo/Chapters in Canada.

* Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (Toronto) Resource Page.

More information about the international movement of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israeli Apartheid.

* Palestinan Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Against Israel Campaign.

* Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.

* Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.