[Boycott - Other News] G4S Protest Demands Freedom For Fayez Sharary And Solidarity With Standing Rock
inminds 25 November 2016 "I am pleading with the world’s human rights activists to help free my beloved husband" ~ Laila Sharary
On Friday 18th November 2016 Inminds human rights group protested outside the headquarters of the British security company G4S to demand the release of British national, father of five, Fayez Sharary who was abducted by Israel on 15th September 2016 before being tortured for 3 weeks by the Israeli secret police Shin Bet. Fayez is caged at Israel's G4S secured Ofer prison in the West Bank.
Fayez’s wife Laila and their young daughter Aya attended the protest. Laila Sharary read out a short message where she lamented the lack of action from the British government and pleaded for human rights organisations to help secure her husbands freedom.
Inminds chair Abbas Ali said "We are shocked that a British citizen has been kidnapped and tortured by Israel with the assistance of a British company G4S, and shamefully the British government is silent about it and is doing nothing to secure his release. In an unprecedented move even the Israeli judge admitted Fayez has been tortured and his forced confession, after three weeks of torture, is worthless and inadmissible, and that Fayez should be released. The Israeli military of course overturned the judge’s ruling and Fayez is left rotting in an Israeli hell hole secured by G4S. We demand that the British government put pressure on the Israeli regime to immediately and unconditionally release Fayez Sharary so he can be reunited with his family. And we demand G4S end its criminal complicity in Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people."
The Inminds protest was also in solidarity with the indigenous people of Standing Rock - the Sioux whose water supply and sacred sites are threatened by the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline that has been rerouted to go through their land.
Inminds chair Abbas Ali said "Thugs from the same British company G4S that secure Israel's torture dens and dungeons are also employed by the oil pipeline company as mercenaries to crush the popular resistance against the raping of indigenous Sioux land, the desecration of their sacred sites, and the poisoning of their water supply. We stand united with the Sioux of Standing Rock against the ethnic cleansing and colonisation of indigenous peoples and their lands whether it be in Palestine or in Standing Rock."
UPDATE - 2ND DEC 2016
For over 4 years Inminds, as part of its Palestinian Prisoners Campaign, has protested regularly outside the global headquarters of G4S demanding G4S stop securing Israels prisons and interrogation centres where Palestinians, including young children, are caged and tortured. Over the years G4S has on several occasions, both in direct email correspondence with Inminds and in statements to the media, promised to end its contracts, first in the West Bank, including with Ofer Prison and then later promising to end all its contracts in Israel, including all its contracts with the Israeli prison service. But the promises have proved to be hollow with nothing materialising.. that is until this month when on 2nd December 2016 G4S sold most of its Israeli holdings including all its contracts with the Israeli prison service. The Financial Times admitted the reason behind the G4S exit was to "extract itself from reputationally damaging work". Whilst G4S still has a small foothold in Israel, this is never the less a great victory for the global boycott movement, of which Inminds is a part of, which has campaigned against G4S around the world for many years. Inminds first protest against G4S was on 12th October 2012: http://inminds.com/article.php?id=10568
In solidarity from Palestine to Standing Rock
G4S out of Palestine - G4S out of Standing Rock
VIDEO: Free Fayez Sharary - British national tortured & caged by Israel
SPEECH - FREE FAYEZ SHARARY
We are here today outside the global headquarters of the British security company G4S to demand freedom for the British citizen, father of 5 children, Fayez Sharary who was abducted by Israel in September 2016 and tortured. Today he languishes in a G4S secured Israeli dungeon.
Fayez Sharary is of Palestinian origin, he was born in a refugee camp in Lebanon. He has lived in this city of London for over 23 years. In September he travelled to the West Bank with his wife Laila and their 3 years old daughter Aya to spend the festival of Eid Al-Adha with their elderly parents in Palestine and to fulfil their dream of praying in the sacred Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
On their way home to the UK they were stopped by Israeli soldiers. At gunpoint the family were taken to an interrogation facility on 15th September 2016. The soldiers interrogated Fayez for 5 hours, keeping his family just outside the interrogation room in the corridor to intimidate him. They were denied food and water for 5 hours and when his 3 year old daughter Aya wanted to use the toilet they refused at first, and then insisted her mother first submit to a degrading strip search, before her daughter could use the toilet. After her mother submitted, they still refused Aya the use of a toilet. Instead they brought a plastic tray which is used for passing bags through the x-ray machine, and told her to do it in there.
After the five hours they took Laila's mobile phone and said she and her daughter could go but that they will be detaining Fayez. When Laila insisted that she will not go without her husband the soldiers got very abusive with her, shouting at her.
Fayez was taken to Petah Tikva Interrogation Centre in Israel and tortured for 3 weeks until he broke. He was denied a lawyer for these 3 weeks until he signed their forced confession on 6th October. Soon after that he was moved to Ofer prison in the West Bank where he is still caged today.
Fayez managed to get a message out to his wife via another prisoner. Laila finally managed to speak to her husband on the phone for the first time on 17th October, over a month after he was taken.
At his military court hearing on 26th October even the Israeli judge, Judge Lt.-Col. Azriel Levi, admitted Fayez had been tortured and ordered his release, saying that "There's no doubt that the defendant's confession, which was given an hour after the end of his Shin Bet interrogation, was dramatically influenced by the method of interrogation, which also included pained and prolonged shackling, threats, and a blatant exploitation of the defendant's demonstrated weakness." Keeping prisoners shackled in back breaking stress positions for hours on end is standard practice in Shin Bet interrogations. He pointed out that "Shin Bet’s own record of the interrogations included multiple statements by Sharary that he was downcast and ready to admit to whatever they asked him to admit to". In light of the torture, Judge Azrieli said Fayez’s confession was “not given voluntarily” and its “value was zero.” The Judge added that several of the crimes attributed to Sharary did not even fit the definitions of crimes under the IDF’s West Bank laws.
The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel responded to the story noting “using torture happens and is not exceptional in interrogations.." It stated that over a 1000 complaints of torture have been submitted but not a single complaint has led to a criminal investigation, let alone a trial or a conviction. Israeli law has never criminalized torture and whilst Israel is a signatory to the UN Conventions Against Torture it insists that it doesn't apply to Palestinians. United Nations funded Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture for Occupied Palestinian Territory, in 2014, treated 845 Palestinian victims of torture including 317 women and 135 children.
Despite the judge’s ruling Fayez Sharary was never released and is still caged at Israel's notorious G4S secured dungeon at Ofer in the West Bank.
We are honoured to have Fayez Sharary’s wife Laila Sharary here; she has a short message to read out:
MESSAGE FROM LAILA SHARARY, WIFE OF PRISONER FAYEZ SHARARY
My name is Laila Sharary. I am the wife of Fayez Sharary, who was unlawfully arrested on September 15th 2016.
We had travelled to Palestine to be with our respective families for Eid el Adha, and as we were leaving, Fayez was arrested.
My husband has never in his life participated in any political activity. Even an Israeli judge declared that the confession that the police obtained is null and void, and that it was forced out through torture and duress!
My husband is the gentlest of men, he wouldn’t hurt a fly, and the children and I miss him terribly, especially our three year old daughter, Aya, who always asks where her father is; I am afraid this episode has traumatized her.
Fayez was imprisoned without being allowed to consult a lawyer.
Among our confiscated personal luggage, was Aya’s security blanket; a small square soft toweling pink blanket, with a rabbit image printed on it; Aya has been missing that blanket terribly, but she takes comfort, even at her young age, that the blanket has stayed behind with her father, giving him comfort and keeping her close to his heart.
That this can happen to someone who’s merely visiting Palestine is astounding; that this happens to someone with a British nationality and no British institution has resolved this yet, beggars belief!
While my husband languishes in Ofer prison, the only response I get from the British Consulate in Palestine, is that they have no news for me.
To add insult to injury, G4S, a company known for its infamous mistreatment of inmates is responsible for inflicting such an injustice on a British citizen is totally shameful.
I am pleading with the world’s human rights activists to help free my beloved husband, and return him safe and sound to the bosom of his family back here, in London.
Freedom to my husband, freedom to all Palestinian political prisoners, free Palestine!
Thank you Laila, I just want to finish by saying that Fayez Sharary and his family are all British citizens, an Israeli judge has gone on record to admit that a British citizen has been tortured and that there is no case to answer, yet the British embassy has done nothing to secure Fayez's release! Admission by an Israeli judge that a British national has been tortured in Israel and is being caged for no legal reason should have raised alarm bells in the foreign office. Yet no action has followed. We urge you to please write to your MPs, that they demand action by the foreign office. At the very least, they can send someone from the embassy to attend Fayez's military hearings - the next hearing is on 14th December.
I also want to emphasis that the reason we are holding this protest outside the headquarters of the British security company G4S is that G4S secures Israel's interrogation centres and prisons where Palestinians like Fayez and children as young as 12 years old are tortured and caged. We ask that people of good conscience please urge your local councils, colleges, banks and supermarkets not to use the services of G4S whilst G4S is complicit in Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people.
Shame on you G4S!
Shame on you G4S!
Free Fayez Sharary!
Free all Palestinian political prisoners!
Free Palestine!
SPEECH - SOLIDARITY WITH STANDING ROCK
We are also here today outside the global headquarters of the British security company G4S to stand in solidarity with the indigenous Sioux tribe of Standing Rock in Dakota whose water supply and sacred sites are threatened by the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline that has been rerouted to avoid white towns and their water supplies, and instead to go through Sioux land in violation of the treaties the Unites States government signed with the Sioux nation.
Mercenaries from this same British company G4S, that is complicit in the torture and caging of Palestinian prisoners, are being hired by the oil pipeline company to crush the popular peoples resistance against the raping of indigenous Sioux land, the desecration of their sacred sites, and the poisoning of their water supply. As more state police refuse to serve on behalf of these corporations, the use of private armies like those provided by G4S becomes prevalent. As British people it’s our duty to tell the British company G4S to get out of Standing Rock, as we tell them to get out of Palestine.
We stand united with the Sioux of Standing Rock against the ethnic cleansing and colonisation of indigenous peoples and their lands whether it be in Palestine or in Standing Rock. From Palestine to Standing Rock – Injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere!
Solidarity with Standing Rock!
Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline!
We stand united – from Palestine to Standing Rock!
We are now going to show a short 8 minute film about Standing Rock..
VIDEO: From Palestine to Standing Rock - United Against Injustice
VIDEO: Mni Wiconi - The Stand at Standing Rock
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