Ref: 35/2019
Date: 19 May 2019
Press Release
The International Commission: The Bundestag decision to recognize BDS movement as an anti-Semitic organization, ignores the values of human rights and the values of Europe.
The International commission to Support Palestinians’ Rights (ICSPR) follows with deep condemnation the recent decision by the Bundestag to consider the BDS as an anti-Semitic organization, which shows Germany’s docility to the Israeli campaign targeting the boycott movement and its activists.
The new German decision ignores the values of the international human rights system, which gives a basic place to the human right to freedom of expression and opinions without interference, and give the civilian population under military occupation the right to resist the occupier by all available means. Moreover, it is in stark contrast to the European Convention on Human Rights.
The decision of the European Parliament contradicts previously expressed European statements, where two European officials in May 2016 said that the objectives of the campaign are in line with the European values system. The Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Bert Koenders stressed that “attitudes and meetings related to the boycott campaign are enshrined in the Dutch Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights”. As well as Irish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Charles Flanagan, who stressed that the boycott movement “is a legitimate political point of view” and he “does not agree with attempts to distort the image of those who support this policy or equate them with violent terrorists”
The International Commission to Support Palestinians’ Rights (ICSPR) reaffirms its unequivocal support for the boycott movement, and believes that it is a civil society movement, and governments should not interfere with the views of civil society organizations, and strongly condemns the Bundestag decision towards the boycott movement. Therefore, it demands following:
ICSPR demands the Bundestag to withdraw its last decision, and stop the illegal interference that is in the interest of the Israeli occupation.
ICSPR urges the European parliaments, the International Parliament Union, civil society activists in Germany and Europe in general to address this decision.
ICSPR calls on the Palestinian leadership to work hard in order to issue a resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations to protect the BDS campaign and activists as a form of peaceful struggle aimed at stopping the crimes of the Israeli occupation.
Regards,
