Home | Friday 3rd October 2008 | Issue 649
PRODUCING THE GOODS
Protesters staged two days of protest last weekend, including a mammoth 12 hour blockade, at the UK HQ of Carmel Agrexco as part of the Boycott Israeli Goods Campaign's week of action against the sale of Israeli goods in the UK.
Carmel, 50% owned by the state of Israel, sell fruit and vegetables exported from illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land and Palestinian workers are paid poverty wages to labour on land which previously belonged to their communities. The company has been the focus for a number of successful actions over the last few years (see SchNEWS 637).
At 3:30 am on Saturday 27th October 2008 activists driving tipper lorries arrived at Agrexco's depot in Middlesex and left two piles of rubble outside the main gates of the depot. These mounds of rubbish were to symbolise the earthmounds and roadblocks left all over Palestine by the Israeli military to prevent Palestinian access to farmland and settler only roads.
On Sunday 28th October at 5am another group of campaigners erected a metal cage outside the main gate outside Four people locked-on inside the cage while one person locked the second gate. The depot was completely shut down for 12 hours with dozens of lorries transporting Agrexco products to the supermarkets backed up around the industrial estate. Agrexco's staff lounged around in the sun unsure what to do.
Despite the police normally being only too keen to arrest activists on any number of spurious charges (see SchNEWS 1 - 648), arrests at Agrexco have been noticeably rare, and so far there hasn't been a single conviction. This is because the company won't participate with prosecutions because they fear that the illegality of their dealings with Israeli settlements would come under scrutiny.
When the Met arrived they had obviously been briefed not to arrest campaigners and they ended up keeping a low key presence throughout the day. They were obviously not paying too much attention as half-way through the day the protestors who hadn't locked on to the gates originally were able to relieve those that had and take their places in the bike locks.
Eventually, though, the desire for a nick got too much for one officer and in a desperate move one person was arrested for 'Obstruction of the Highway' despite the fact that he er... wasn't on a highway. The activist was kept in a cell overnight and didn't get released until after appearing in court at 3pm on Monday.
Elsewhere, Palestine solidarity campaigners around the country held demonstrations outside supermarkets calling for a boycott of Israeli goods. In Brighton some discontented shoppers took all of the frozen Israeli goods out of the freezers and left them in the aisles while in North London a group called Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods held several pickets under the banner 'It's kosher to boycott Israeli goods!'.
*For More info see www.bigcampaign.org or email boycottagrexco@riseup.net
Carmel, 50% owned by the state of Israel, sell fruit and vegetables exported from illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land and Palestinian workers are paid poverty wages to labour on land which previously belonged to their communities. The company has been the focus for a number of successful actions over the last few years (see SchNEWS 637).
At 3:30 am on Saturday 27th October 2008 activists driving tipper lorries arrived at Agrexco's depot in Middlesex and left two piles of rubble outside the main gates of the depot. These mounds of rubbish were to symbolise the earthmounds and roadblocks left all over Palestine by the Israeli military to prevent Palestinian access to farmland and settler only roads.
On Sunday 28th October at 5am another group of campaigners erected a metal cage outside the main gate outside Four people locked-on inside the cage while one person locked the second gate. The depot was completely shut down for 12 hours with dozens of lorries transporting Agrexco products to the supermarkets backed up around the industrial estate. Agrexco's staff lounged around in the sun unsure what to do.
Despite the police normally being only too keen to arrest activists on any number of spurious charges (see SchNEWS 1 - 648), arrests at Agrexco have been noticeably rare, and so far there hasn't been a single conviction. This is because the company won't participate with prosecutions because they fear that the illegality of their dealings with Israeli settlements would come under scrutiny.
When the Met arrived they had obviously been briefed not to arrest campaigners and they ended up keeping a low key presence throughout the day. They were obviously not paying too much attention as half-way through the day the protestors who hadn't locked on to the gates originally were able to relieve those that had and take their places in the bike locks.
Eventually, though, the desire for a nick got too much for one officer and in a desperate move one person was arrested for 'Obstruction of the Highway' despite the fact that he er... wasn't on a highway. The activist was kept in a cell overnight and didn't get released until after appearing in court at 3pm on Monday.
Elsewhere, Palestine solidarity campaigners around the country held demonstrations outside supermarkets calling for a boycott of Israeli goods. In Brighton some discontented shoppers took all of the frozen Israeli goods out of the freezers and left them in the aisles while in North London a group called Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods held several pickets under the banner 'It's kosher to boycott Israeli goods!'.
*For More info see www.bigcampaign.org or email boycottagrexco@riseup.net
