Not for the first time, the European Union is in denial about how it is subsidizing Israel’s crimes.
Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, the EU’s commissioner for scientific research, recently acknowledged that the cosmetics-maker Ahava was allocated more than €1 million worth of innovation grants from the Union over a period stretching from 1998 to 2013. Giving even one cent to Ahava involves facilitating breaches of international law because of the firm’s unlawful activities in the West Bank.
As Geoghegan-Quinn doesn’t appear to recognize this problem, she would be well-advised to read a report, issued in May, by the human rights organization B’Tselem. It highlights how Ahava is partly owned by two Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land: Mitzpe Shalem and Qalya. Both of those settlements are illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which forbids an occupying power from transferring its civilian population to the territory it occupies.
Responding to a parliamentary question, Geoghegan-Quinn effectively conceded that some of Ahava’s EU-funded research may have been undertaken in the West Bank. While Ahava is “formally established within the borders of the internationally recognized state of Israel”, she said, beneficiaries of EU grants are not required to carry out the related research in the place of establishment.
I would alert Geoghegan-Quinn to two salient facts:
1. The rules covering EU science grants stipulate that projects which violate “fundamental ethical principles” are ineligible for funding. Carrying out research in one or more illegal settlements must surely violate such principles.
2. Ahava may be able to give its offices in Holon or Airport City, industrial zones near Tel Aviv, as an address for its headquarters when applying for Euro-lolly. Yet its core manufacturing activities are conducted in Mitzpe Shalem. If Geoghegan-Quinn doesn’t believe me on this, I urge her to take a trip to the settlement, where she will no doubt be given a warm welcome to Ahava’s official visitors’ centre.
There are other questions about why any of my tax euros should be going to a private cosmetics firm. A glance at Cordis, the EU’s database on its science grants, shows that in one of the projects concerned, Ahava has teamed up with the US Department of the Interior. The objective of this scheme is to assess what impact tiny toxins (nanoparticles, as boffins call them) can have on the environment.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I never had the impression that the Department of the Interior spent too much time worrying about trees and dolphins. So what is the real agenda here?
·First published by The Electronic Intifada (www.electronicintifada.net), 5 August 2011.
Showing posts with label international law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label international law. Show all posts
Friday, August 5, 2011
Friday, November 26, 2010
Volvo enables torture of Palestinians
Volvo prides itself on being a byword for sturdiness, safety and reliability. After a careful examination of the vehicle-maker's investment in Israel, perhaps it should also become synonymous with enabling torture.
The Swedish company has a direct shareholding of 26.5 percent in the Israeli company Merkavim, manufacturer of the Mars Prisoner Bus. This bus has been specifically designed for use by the Israeli Prison Authority to transport Palestinians apprehended in the occupied West Bank and Gaza to facilities within Israel's internationally-recognized borders. The remainder of Merkavim is owned by Mayer's Cars and Trucks, which doubles up as the exclusive representative of Volvo in Israel.
Evidence amassed by human rights monitors indicates that torture is widespread within Israeli detention centers. Although the country's high court ruled in 1999 that some interrogation methods should be outlawed, Israel continues to approve torture in cases where it is deemed "necessary," Amnesty International has found. An important loophole in the court's ruling indicated that torture is permissible in cases where Israeli security forces face an imminent threat. Israel's attorney general has been all-too-willing to invoke that loophole in order to approve the use of torture, despite how Israel has ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
Each year Israel locks up an average of 700 Palestinian children, often for offenses no more serious than throwing stones. The organization Defence for Children International-Palestine Section (DCI-PS) says that ill-treatment is common while detainees are being transported to prison. "All are subjected to verbal threats and insults," Rifat Kassis, director of DCI-PS's office in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said. "Some are beaten up, kicked, made to sit in an uncomfortable way. We have children who are handcuffed and blindfolded as well. All of these are methods of restraining children in a painful way."
During September, three children were reportedly given electric shocks by Israeli interrogators in the Jewish-only settlement of Ariel in the West Bank. One of the children was only 14 years of age. A recent investigation by DCI-PS and other anti-torture groups found that out of a sample of 100 children arrested by Israeli forces last year, 69 percent were beaten and kicked and 12 percent threatened with rape or another form of sexual assault.
Kassis also said that by bringing detainees from the occupied West Bank into Israel, the Merkavim buses are facilitating violations of international humanitarian law. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, persons convicted for offenses in an occupied territory may only be jailed within that territory.
A representative of Merkavim told me that the company does "not wish to speak to journalists." According to its website, the Mars Prisoner Bus is "the perfect solution for conveying prisoners under guard." Containing six separate compartments, the bus allows for "full surveillance during the sensitive, high-risk drive from one secured facility to another." Among its features are wide windows "fitted with armored glass to prevent breakouts" and "an advanced intercom system and closed-circuit TV."
Per-Martin Johansson, a spokesman for Volvo Buses, said that the Swedish corporation "can't control" what affiliated companies do. "Vehicles to transport prisoners can be found in every country all over the world," he added. "These buses are not special for Israel. They need them in every country to make sure prisoners are not escaping."
Johansson's statement contrasts with the high ethical standards to which Volvo is nominally committed. In 2003 Volvo's board of directors rubber-stamped a "code of conduct" for the company. It says that the company supports "internationally proclaimed human rights and ensures that it is not complicit in human rights abuses."
Despite that code, Volvo has faced numerous accusations that its products are being used as tools of Israeli oppression. In April this year Israeli forces were photographed operating Volvo bulldozers in the Palestinian village of al-Walaja. The forces were carrying out work related to the massive wall that Israel has continued to build on occupied land in the West Bank, despite a 2004 opinion issued by the International Court of Justice declaring the project illegal. The use of Volvo bulldozers in the destruction of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem and in the wider West Bank has similarly been documented, with the work of Adri Nieuwhof, a contributor to The Electronic Intifada, proving valuable in highlighting how Volvo profits from the occupation.
Along with its prisoner bus, Merkavim also produces the Mars Defender Bus. The Israeli public transport company Egged runs a fleet of the latter vehicles in the services it provides to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Like the prisoner bus, the Mars Defender contains a Volvo-made chassis.
Mauricio Lazala, a researcher with the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre in London, said that major companies like Volvo should study the impact of their corporate activities. "This is especially important in conflict areas," he added. "In conflict areas, abuses can have very ugly manifestations. Therefore, companies should be doubly careful."
At a session held in London this month, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine -- an investigative body inspired by the late British intellectual and anti-war campaigner Bertrand Russell -- concluded that a number of private corporations "play a very decisive role" in enabling Israel to commit crimes against humanity.
Although Volvo was not one of the companies identified by the tribunal, it is facilitating some of the offenses deemed "reprehensible" by this body. These included the provision of services to Israeli settlements and assistance to the construction of the "apartheid wall" in the West Bank. A statement issued by the tribunal noted that corporations complicit in Israeli violations of human rights have placed themselves "on the wrong side of international opinion, morality and law." As a result, they are "undermining the very integrity and credibility of international law and the institutions that underpin it," added the statement, which was endorsed by former South African government minister Ronnie Kasrils, veteran French diplomat Stephane Hassel, Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Corrigan Maguire and ex-US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.
Frank Barat, the tribunal's coordinator, said that while it can be legally difficult to prosecute such companies, public campaigns can pressure them into changing their behavior. "What people can do is push their governments to divest from those companies," he said. "If a company is helping to build the wall [in the West Bank] it is helping an illegal act, so it should be sanctioned."
Volvo's attempts to justify its investments in Israel are disingenuous. The corporation cannot claim that the activities of a subsidiary have nothing to do with its headquarters in Gothenburg or that Merkavim's buses are no different from other prison buses found around the world. It is abundantly clear that these vehicles are tailored especially to meet the sadistic "needs" of the Israeli occupation; indeed, that is their selling point.
Supplying Israel’s prison services is not analogous to aiding the prison services of any other country. Israel deliberately uses mass imprisonment and torture to deny Palestinians the right to resist their occupation. Addameer, a prisoner’s support group, has documented how 650,000 Palestinians – one-fifth of the population living in the occupied territories – have been incarcerated since 1967.
Whatever Volvo may say, the truth is that it has become a subcontractor for the Israeli occupation. Drivers in Europe and America might feel secure as they slide into the well-upholstered seat of a car made by Volvo. In Palestine, the same company is facilitating the torture of children.
·First published by The Electronic Intifada (www.electronicintifada.net), 24 November 2010
The Swedish company has a direct shareholding of 26.5 percent in the Israeli company Merkavim, manufacturer of the Mars Prisoner Bus. This bus has been specifically designed for use by the Israeli Prison Authority to transport Palestinians apprehended in the occupied West Bank and Gaza to facilities within Israel's internationally-recognized borders. The remainder of Merkavim is owned by Mayer's Cars and Trucks, which doubles up as the exclusive representative of Volvo in Israel.
Evidence amassed by human rights monitors indicates that torture is widespread within Israeli detention centers. Although the country's high court ruled in 1999 that some interrogation methods should be outlawed, Israel continues to approve torture in cases where it is deemed "necessary," Amnesty International has found. An important loophole in the court's ruling indicated that torture is permissible in cases where Israeli security forces face an imminent threat. Israel's attorney general has been all-too-willing to invoke that loophole in order to approve the use of torture, despite how Israel has ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
Each year Israel locks up an average of 700 Palestinian children, often for offenses no more serious than throwing stones. The organization Defence for Children International-Palestine Section (DCI-PS) says that ill-treatment is common while detainees are being transported to prison. "All are subjected to verbal threats and insults," Rifat Kassis, director of DCI-PS's office in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said. "Some are beaten up, kicked, made to sit in an uncomfortable way. We have children who are handcuffed and blindfolded as well. All of these are methods of restraining children in a painful way."
During September, three children were reportedly given electric shocks by Israeli interrogators in the Jewish-only settlement of Ariel in the West Bank. One of the children was only 14 years of age. A recent investigation by DCI-PS and other anti-torture groups found that out of a sample of 100 children arrested by Israeli forces last year, 69 percent were beaten and kicked and 12 percent threatened with rape or another form of sexual assault.
Kassis also said that by bringing detainees from the occupied West Bank into Israel, the Merkavim buses are facilitating violations of international humanitarian law. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, persons convicted for offenses in an occupied territory may only be jailed within that territory.
A representative of Merkavim told me that the company does "not wish to speak to journalists." According to its website, the Mars Prisoner Bus is "the perfect solution for conveying prisoners under guard." Containing six separate compartments, the bus allows for "full surveillance during the sensitive, high-risk drive from one secured facility to another." Among its features are wide windows "fitted with armored glass to prevent breakouts" and "an advanced intercom system and closed-circuit TV."
Per-Martin Johansson, a spokesman for Volvo Buses, said that the Swedish corporation "can't control" what affiliated companies do. "Vehicles to transport prisoners can be found in every country all over the world," he added. "These buses are not special for Israel. They need them in every country to make sure prisoners are not escaping."
Johansson's statement contrasts with the high ethical standards to which Volvo is nominally committed. In 2003 Volvo's board of directors rubber-stamped a "code of conduct" for the company. It says that the company supports "internationally proclaimed human rights and ensures that it is not complicit in human rights abuses."
Despite that code, Volvo has faced numerous accusations that its products are being used as tools of Israeli oppression. In April this year Israeli forces were photographed operating Volvo bulldozers in the Palestinian village of al-Walaja. The forces were carrying out work related to the massive wall that Israel has continued to build on occupied land in the West Bank, despite a 2004 opinion issued by the International Court of Justice declaring the project illegal. The use of Volvo bulldozers in the destruction of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem and in the wider West Bank has similarly been documented, with the work of Adri Nieuwhof, a contributor to The Electronic Intifada, proving valuable in highlighting how Volvo profits from the occupation.
Along with its prisoner bus, Merkavim also produces the Mars Defender Bus. The Israeli public transport company Egged runs a fleet of the latter vehicles in the services it provides to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Like the prisoner bus, the Mars Defender contains a Volvo-made chassis.
Mauricio Lazala, a researcher with the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre in London, said that major companies like Volvo should study the impact of their corporate activities. "This is especially important in conflict areas," he added. "In conflict areas, abuses can have very ugly manifestations. Therefore, companies should be doubly careful."
At a session held in London this month, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine -- an investigative body inspired by the late British intellectual and anti-war campaigner Bertrand Russell -- concluded that a number of private corporations "play a very decisive role" in enabling Israel to commit crimes against humanity.
Although Volvo was not one of the companies identified by the tribunal, it is facilitating some of the offenses deemed "reprehensible" by this body. These included the provision of services to Israeli settlements and assistance to the construction of the "apartheid wall" in the West Bank. A statement issued by the tribunal noted that corporations complicit in Israeli violations of human rights have placed themselves "on the wrong side of international opinion, morality and law." As a result, they are "undermining the very integrity and credibility of international law and the institutions that underpin it," added the statement, which was endorsed by former South African government minister Ronnie Kasrils, veteran French diplomat Stephane Hassel, Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Corrigan Maguire and ex-US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.
Frank Barat, the tribunal's coordinator, said that while it can be legally difficult to prosecute such companies, public campaigns can pressure them into changing their behavior. "What people can do is push their governments to divest from those companies," he said. "If a company is helping to build the wall [in the West Bank] it is helping an illegal act, so it should be sanctioned."
Volvo's attempts to justify its investments in Israel are disingenuous. The corporation cannot claim that the activities of a subsidiary have nothing to do with its headquarters in Gothenburg or that Merkavim's buses are no different from other prison buses found around the world. It is abundantly clear that these vehicles are tailored especially to meet the sadistic "needs" of the Israeli occupation; indeed, that is their selling point.
Supplying Israel’s prison services is not analogous to aiding the prison services of any other country. Israel deliberately uses mass imprisonment and torture to deny Palestinians the right to resist their occupation. Addameer, a prisoner’s support group, has documented how 650,000 Palestinians – one-fifth of the population living in the occupied territories – have been incarcerated since 1967.
Whatever Volvo may say, the truth is that it has become a subcontractor for the Israeli occupation. Drivers in Europe and America might feel secure as they slide into the well-upholstered seat of a car made by Volvo. In Palestine, the same company is facilitating the torture of children.
·First published by The Electronic Intifada (www.electronicintifada.net), 24 November 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
When law enforcers have an illegal headquarters
Talks aimed at reaching an intelligence-sharing agreement between the European Union and Israel have skirted around the location of Israel’s national police headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem.
In 2005, the EU decided that Europol, its law enforcement office, should negotiate a formal cooperation agreement with Israel. Although Europol stated last year that a draft accord had been completed, it has now acknowledged that the question of Israeli police basing their headquarters on Palestinian land has not been properly addressed. “The negotiations so far have not touched upon the issue of the location of the main office of the Israeli police in East Jerusalem,” a Europol spokesman said.
The issue is highly sensitive because the Union has never recognised Israel’s 1967 occupation of East Jerusalem and has opposed Israel’s policy of evicting Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, the neighbourhood where Israel’s police and public security ministry are headquartered. A report by EU diplomats from March last year complained about a marked acceleration in the pace with which Israeli settlements are being built in East Jerusalem as part of a deliberate policy to sever it from the remainder of the West Bank. “Israel is, by practical means, actively pursuing the illegal annexation of East Jerusalem,” the report said.
Israel is one of several countries – including Russia, the U.S. and Canada – to have entered into talks on sharing information with Europol. As part of an eventual agreement, Europol would expect to have representatives stationed in Israel’s police headquarters. Such a move would involve a reversal of a decades-old EU policy as it would mean a de facto recognition of Israel’s takeover of East Jerusalem.
An alliance of Palestinian trade unions and campaign groups urging a global movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel argued that an EU-Israel police cooperation agreement would violate international law.
Michael Deas, European coordinator for the Palestinian BDS National Committee, said his group had recently received legal advice from a barrister. This opinion concluded that any state that acted to legitimise Israel’s control of Palestinian territories would be directly contravening the Fourth Geneva Convention, a 1949 law written in response to Nazi atrocities during the Second World War.
Deas added that an EU-Israel police accord would follow a series of moves to involve Israel intimately in some of the Union’s key political and economic policies in recent years. Israeli arms companies that supplied some of the deadliest weapons used in the war against Gaza in 2008 and 2009 and makers of surveillance technology for illegal settlements and military checkpoints in the West Bank are among the beneficiaries of the Union’s multi-billion euro “framework programme” for scientific research, he noted. He also likened Israel’s systematic denial of basic rights to Palestinians to the apartheid regime that ruled South Africa for much of the twentieth century.
“If the European Union signs an agreement to share intelligence with the Israeli police force, it would only further entrench its active complicity in Israel’s occupation and apartheid system,” he said.
Under the 1995 convention that covers Europol’s activities, the office is not permitted either to process information that has been obtained in a manner that violates human rights.
While Israel’s High Court ruled in 1999 that some interrogation methods used against detainees should be prohibited as they clearly consisted of torture and ill-treatment, allegations of widespread torture persist. A December 2009 report by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) found that complaints of torture are frequently glossed over by the authorities. Out of more than 600 complaints submitted by torture victims since 2001, not one had led to a criminal investigation, according to the report.
Amnesty International’s latest annual report indicates, too, that torture of Palestinian detainees by Israel’s General Security Service is rife. Practises allegedly used include beatings, placing detainees in “stress” positions designed to cause them pain and discomfort, and forced sleep deprivation. Despite the 1999 court ruling, Israel still allows torture in cases where it is deemed “necessary”, Amnesty noted.
A further snag is that the EU’s own data protection officials regard Israel’s privacy laws as inadequate. In a 2009 paper, the officials said that linking Europol’s databases with those run by the Israeli police would breach the Europol convention. Israel was found not to respect data protection standards to which Europol is legally bound such as requirements that the collection of data should not be “excessive” and that it should not be stored indefinitely.
Jelle van Buuren from Eurowatch, a civil liberties organisation, said that Europol wishes to have strong links with Israel and other countries it deems as strategic partners so that it can curry favour with the Union’s governments.
“Getting formal cooperation agreements with other countries would strengthen Europol’s position vis-à-vis (EU) member states,” he added. “Europol wants to be a European intelligence hub.”
•First published by Inter Press Service, 30 June 2010 (www.ipsnews.net)
In 2005, the EU decided that Europol, its law enforcement office, should negotiate a formal cooperation agreement with Israel. Although Europol stated last year that a draft accord had been completed, it has now acknowledged that the question of Israeli police basing their headquarters on Palestinian land has not been properly addressed. “The negotiations so far have not touched upon the issue of the location of the main office of the Israeli police in East Jerusalem,” a Europol spokesman said.
The issue is highly sensitive because the Union has never recognised Israel’s 1967 occupation of East Jerusalem and has opposed Israel’s policy of evicting Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, the neighbourhood where Israel’s police and public security ministry are headquartered. A report by EU diplomats from March last year complained about a marked acceleration in the pace with which Israeli settlements are being built in East Jerusalem as part of a deliberate policy to sever it from the remainder of the West Bank. “Israel is, by practical means, actively pursuing the illegal annexation of East Jerusalem,” the report said.
Israel is one of several countries – including Russia, the U.S. and Canada – to have entered into talks on sharing information with Europol. As part of an eventual agreement, Europol would expect to have representatives stationed in Israel’s police headquarters. Such a move would involve a reversal of a decades-old EU policy as it would mean a de facto recognition of Israel’s takeover of East Jerusalem.
An alliance of Palestinian trade unions and campaign groups urging a global movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel argued that an EU-Israel police cooperation agreement would violate international law.
Michael Deas, European coordinator for the Palestinian BDS National Committee, said his group had recently received legal advice from a barrister. This opinion concluded that any state that acted to legitimise Israel’s control of Palestinian territories would be directly contravening the Fourth Geneva Convention, a 1949 law written in response to Nazi atrocities during the Second World War.
Deas added that an EU-Israel police accord would follow a series of moves to involve Israel intimately in some of the Union’s key political and economic policies in recent years. Israeli arms companies that supplied some of the deadliest weapons used in the war against Gaza in 2008 and 2009 and makers of surveillance technology for illegal settlements and military checkpoints in the West Bank are among the beneficiaries of the Union’s multi-billion euro “framework programme” for scientific research, he noted. He also likened Israel’s systematic denial of basic rights to Palestinians to the apartheid regime that ruled South Africa for much of the twentieth century.
“If the European Union signs an agreement to share intelligence with the Israeli police force, it would only further entrench its active complicity in Israel’s occupation and apartheid system,” he said.
Under the 1995 convention that covers Europol’s activities, the office is not permitted either to process information that has been obtained in a manner that violates human rights.
While Israel’s High Court ruled in 1999 that some interrogation methods used against detainees should be prohibited as they clearly consisted of torture and ill-treatment, allegations of widespread torture persist. A December 2009 report by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) found that complaints of torture are frequently glossed over by the authorities. Out of more than 600 complaints submitted by torture victims since 2001, not one had led to a criminal investigation, according to the report.
Amnesty International’s latest annual report indicates, too, that torture of Palestinian detainees by Israel’s General Security Service is rife. Practises allegedly used include beatings, placing detainees in “stress” positions designed to cause them pain and discomfort, and forced sleep deprivation. Despite the 1999 court ruling, Israel still allows torture in cases where it is deemed “necessary”, Amnesty noted.
A further snag is that the EU’s own data protection officials regard Israel’s privacy laws as inadequate. In a 2009 paper, the officials said that linking Europol’s databases with those run by the Israeli police would breach the Europol convention. Israel was found not to respect data protection standards to which Europol is legally bound such as requirements that the collection of data should not be “excessive” and that it should not be stored indefinitely.
Jelle van Buuren from Eurowatch, a civil liberties organisation, said that Europol wishes to have strong links with Israel and other countries it deems as strategic partners so that it can curry favour with the Union’s governments.
“Getting formal cooperation agreements with other countries would strengthen Europol’s position vis-à-vis (EU) member states,” he added. “Europol wants to be a European intelligence hub.”
•First published by Inter Press Service, 30 June 2010 (www.ipsnews.net)
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