commemorate Palestinian Land Day & Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions global action

A call to end 62 years of Israeli occupation, colonization, & apartheid.

Saturday April 2nd, 12h00
metro Mont-Royal
Montreal, Quebec
Canada

Freedom for Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Oman, Algeria & occupied Palestine!

BDS Quebec, a coalition of several trade unions, community organizations, and solidarity groups, is calling people in Quebec to commemorate Palestinian land day in joining a global day of action for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in support of the Palestinian peoples right to self-determination, freedom and dignity.

Palestinian Land Day commemorates March 30th, 1976 when Israeli military forces shot and killed six young Palestinian citizens of Israel. These brave youth were among thousands protesting the Israeli government’s expropriation of Palestinian land to build new Jewish-only colonies and expand existing ones. Today, Land Day symbolizes Palestinian resistance to Israel’s ongoing land expropriation, colonization, occupation and apartheid.

Inspired by the ongoing popular revolutions in the Arab world and the exceptional courage, dignity and determination of people struggling against violent repression we express our solidarity with these struggles for self-determination, freedom, democracy, justice and equality all around the world.

We appeal to people in Quebec to intensify their support for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the Israeli government, a global campaign driven-by Palestinian popular organizations who have declared BDS as the primary means for international solidarity activists to support the Palestinian struggle for freedom and to force Israel to respect international law.

Today there can be no true liberation in the nations of North Africa or the Middle East without the liberation of Palestine. There can be no claim by governments to an “international community” without full and honest efforts to enforce international law in regards to the Palestinian people and the ongoing Israeli military occupation.

On Saturday, April 2nd we will gather in Montreal in response to the appeal launched in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations to demand:

1. The right of return and the right to reparations for Palestinians forced from their homes and the lands that they have been displaced from in accordance with U.N. resolution 194, passed December 11, 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly.

2. The ending of Israel’s military occupation in accordance with U.N. resolution 242, which urges Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories since 1967, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and including East Jerusalem as well as the Syrian Golan Heights; The ending of colonialism via Israeli ‘settlements’ in accordance with Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits an occupying power to deport or transfer parts of its own population in the territories occupied by it. Further the ending of Israels illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip which violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, which clearly forbids any form of collective punishment. Israel also remains in violation of the Covenants on Civil and Political Rights, and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights that prohibit “deprive a people of its own means of subsistence” and Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 13) which prohibits violate freedom of movement.

3. Equal rights for Palestinians citizens of Israel, the dismantling of apartheid faced by Palestinians inside Israel, a system of institutionalized racial discrimination that prevails in Israel against its non-Jewish population, which is a violation of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973).

* On April 2nd we will gather united in Montreal to intensify the BDS campaign in Quebec by inviting people not to purchase Israeli products and to ask retailers to remove these products from their shelves, inviting unions, investment funds, foundations, churches, to no longer invest in companies or funds that support Israeli Apartheid; asking academic institutions in Quebec to sever their links with Israeli academic institutions, and by asking the National Assembly to freeze the Québec Cooperation Agreement with Israel, until the Israeli government complies with international law and respects the rights of Palestinians under international law.

* On April 2nd we will protest against the unilateral pro-Israeli positions of the Canadian government to demand a foreign policies that respect international law, specifically in relation to the Palestinian people.

organized by the BDS Quebec Committee

Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (ASSÉ)
Canadian Palestinian Foundation of Quebec (CPFQ)
Canadian Muslim Forum (FMC-CMF)
Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW)
Centre Justice et Foi
Coalition pour la Justice en Palestine-UQAM
Collectif D’Abord Solidaires
Collectif de solidarité au Canada avec les luttes sociales en Tunisie
College and University Workers United (CUWU)
Conseil central du Montréal métropolitain-CSN
Entraide missionnaire
Fédération des femmes du Québec (FFQ)
Fédération nationale des enseignantes et enseignants du Québec (FNEEQ-CSN)
Groupe Rezeq-Faraj/Un seul État
Ligue des droits et libertés
Palestiniens et Juifs Unis (PAJU)
Parole arabe
Québec Solidaire
Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR)
Tadamon
Voix Juives Indépendantes

for information www.bdsquebec.org
info@bdsquebec.org
twitter @bdsquebec

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement
www.bdsmovement.net