G4S has announced that it will be selling its subsidiary, G4S Israel, “in the next 12 to 24 months”.
For the last four years, G4S has been the target of a sustained campaign by Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other groups involved in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement because of its connection with the Israeli occupation.
Campaigners have attended the company’s Annual General Meeting in London every year for the last three years, dominating the AGM proceedings with questions to the board about G4S’s involvement in Israeli prisons.
Universities across the UK, and globally, as well as local councils have made decisions not to renew security contracts with G4S and not to consider new tenders from the company while it continued to do business with Israel.
Sara Apps, interim Director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: “We welcome the decision by the G4S board to sell G4S Israel, and hope that the company will fulfil this pledge in the timescale given.
“This decision is a vindication of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and its tactics of peacefully putting pressure on companies to divest from the Israeli occupation.
“G4S was one of the biggest targets of the BDS movement, and its decision to disinvest from Israel is a landmark victory in the ongoing struggle for Palestinian freedom and self-determination.”
G4S follows other BDS targets, including Veolia and Orange, in announcing its decision to sell its Israeli subsidiaries in the last 12 months.
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Notes to Editors:
G4S describes itself as an international security solutions group. Its headquarters are in the UK.
G4S’s announcement, made yesterday: http://tinyurl.com/hc4hxut
G4S activities in Israel and the OPT:
1. G4S provides security systems to incarceration facilities for Palestinian political prisoners in Ofer Prison (West Bank), Ketziot, Megiddo and Damon (Israel), and Kishon (also known as Al Jalame) and Jerusalem detention facilities (Israel).
2. G4S provides equipment and maintenance services to Israeli military checkpoints in the West Bank, notably Qalandia, Bethlehem and Irtah checkpoints in the Apartheid Wall.
3. G4S provides security services to businesses in illegal Israeli settlements.
4. G4S provides security systems for the Israeli police headquarters in the West Bank.
5. G4S has supplied luggage scanning equipment and full body scanners to several checkpoints in the West Bank.
For more information on G4S and its involvement in the Israeli occupation: https://palestinecampaign.org/case-g4s/
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This media release was sent to national and international media on Wednesday, 10th March 2016