[Boycott - Other News] Wife Of Tortured Prisoner Addresses Palestine Protest Outside HP's 'Biggest Event Of The Year'
inminds 1 December 2016 "I am saddened to learn that Hewlett Packard is a company that facilitates the unjust israeli prison system my husband is imprisoned in. I ask Hewlett Packard to stop putting money ahead of humanity." ~ Laila Sharary
On Tuesday 29th November 2016 Inminds human rights group, for the second year running, protested outside HP's "biggest event of the year" - Discover 2016 - which saw 10,000 IT executives from around the globe come to London. Inminds demanded that the american multi-national company Hewlett Packard ( HP / HPE) end its complicity in Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people including providing the IT systems and technology that powers Israel's prisons and interrogation centres.
Laila Sharary, wife of British citizen, Fayez Sharary whom an Israeli judge has admitted was tortured in an Israeli interrogation centre in September 2016, and is currently caged in an Israeli prison despite the judge ordering his release, spoke of HP's collaboration with her husbands abusers "I am saddened to learn that Hewlett Packard is a company that facilitates the unjust israeli prison system my husband is imprisoned in. I ask Hewlett Packard to stop putting money ahead of humanity."
Inminds chair Abbas Ali said:
"We are hear to shatter HP's PR facade of a benevolent IT company born from humble roots, to expose the reality of one of the worlds largest arms dealers - a company that provides the IT backbone to Israel's killing machine which has been condemned for its war crimes by the United Nations Human Rights Council.
We are here to reveal HP's hidden role in the torture of Palestinian children as documented by the United Nations Rights Of The Child report. Israel's interrogation centres where children as young as 12 years are brutally tortured, and Israel's prisons where children are caged without charge in 1m x 3m filthy holes in the ground, could not operate without HP. HP provides the systems and servers that keep those hell holes open.
And if that list of crimes wasn't enough, HP also helps Israel implement apartheid with its biometric systems at illegal checkpoints and racially discriminatory colour coded ID cards. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has urged Israel to eradicate its "policies and practices of racial segregation and apartheid" and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court lists apartheid as a "crime against humanity". HP is a thoroughly nasty company which no amount of PR can whitewash."
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
10,000 HP delegates arrived from around the world for HPE Discover 2016 show. HP had provided free coaches and shuttle buses from the airports and hotels to the show.The delegates were greeted by our protest exposing HP's hidden role in Israel's war crimes against the Palestinian people. #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
VIDEO: Wife of tortured prisoner addresses Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #StopHP
SPEECH - HP END COMPLICITY IN ISRAEL'S WAR CRIMES
We are here today outside the ExCel Centre in London where Hewlett Packard’s “biggest event of the year” – Discover 2016 is taking place, to protest against Hewlett Packard’s complicity in Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinian people, in particular the children.
HP - A MAJOR ARMS PEDDLER
Most people think of HP as an innocent office supplies and printer company, but the reality is far darker. HP is one of the top 20 arms companies in the US with arms sales worth $3 billion in 2011. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has done the research and when they say arms sales they define that as goods & services designed specifically for military purpose, and doesn't include general purpose equipment like office computers. They also state that the figure may be an underestimate as it doesn't include classified contracts that HP might be involved in.
HP might not make bullets or bombs, but what they make is far more deadly. They specialize in developing the IT infrastructure that is essential for a modern military to function. And who do they make these specialised killing systems for? Well Hewlett-Packard operates in 178 countries around the world, but in HP's own words "Israel is one of the few countries where HP has a massive presence.. In the past decade, HP has invested over $6 billion in the acquisition of Israeli companies, including the establishment of production plants.. HP is the second largest investor in Israeli IT."
HP PROVIDES IT BACKBONE TO ISRAELI MILITARY
In 2011 HP won Israel's largest ever servers tender, worth an estimated $140 million. Under the tender HP implements and manages the entire server farm of the Israeli Ministry of Defense and the Israeli army. Those HP servers form the IT backbone of the entire Israeli war machine which has been found guilty of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity by the UN Human Rights Council.
Just two years ago Israeli missiles targeted 118 schools in Gaza including 65 United Nations schools, resulting in the slaughter of 521 children. Unicef reported that it left well over a thousand children with permanent disabilities and more that 1500 children were orphaned. And this is not a new phenomenon, for the past 14 years every 60 hours Israel kills one Palestinian child!
HP makes such slaughter possible with its strategic support of Israel's killing machine.
Shame on you HP! Shame on you HP!
In 2009 HP won the contract to supply all computer equipment to the Israeli military. In another contract HP supply configuration management database system for the Israeli Army's secret IT unit. HP is also implementing and assimilating an enterprise resource planning and management system for the Israeli Army.
HP has been equipping the Israeli military for ten years, since 2006 when it was first contracted to provide the IT infrastructure for the Israeli navy in a pilot for implementing across the entire army, thus helping the Israeli navy execute its illegal blockade of Gaza which also began in 2006.
Documents from Israel's defence ministry revealed that Israel uses a meticulously calculated cold-blooded calorie count to limit food entering Gaza to enforce a starvation diet on Gaza where people are always starving but not quiet dead from starvation. When hungry Gazaan's go fishing in their own waters, their boats are attacked by the Israeli navy and their fishermen are abducted. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, has stated that Israel’s blockade of Gaza is illegal, that “International humanitarian law prohibits starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and it is also prohibited to impose collective punishment on civilians.”
Shame on you HP! Shame on you HP!
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
HP HELPS ISRAELS DUNGEONS & TORTURE DENS TO OPERATE
Hewlett Packard also provides the essential IT services and infrastructure that enable the Israeli Prison Service to function. Their prisons and interrogation centres where Palestinian children are caged and tortured are powered by HP.
Last year between Oct 2015 and Aug 2016 Israel abducted and caged 2,320 Palestinian children, some as young as 11 years old - that's more than one child taken from their parents every 4 hours! Figures for Jerusalem show that 40% of the children were sexually abused by Israeli soldiers during arrest or interrogation. During interrogation 75% of Palestinian children detained by Israel are physically tortured.
The United Nations "Rights Of The Child" report documents the brutal torture of Palestinian children as standard practice during interrogations in order to coerce confessions, usually to stone throwing which carries a sentence of up to 20 years' imprisonment.
72 Palestinian prisoners have been tortured to death in Israeli prisons since 1967. The latest being father of five young children, Raed Abdul-Salam al-Jabari, who died following interrogation at Eshel prison on 9th Sep 2014. He had been arrested over a simple car accident involving an illegal Israeli settler. The IPS claimed he had committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell but the autopsy revealed he had been savagely tortured with repeated blows to the head and face causing brain haemorrhage. His neck showed no signs of hanging.
In an on-going contract, worth millions of dollars, HP provides the Israeli prison service the systems and servers needed to keep it operational. In 2012 HP provided the central servers for the operational system of the Israeli prison service ("Tzohar") and its on-going maintenance. In a contract worth $35 million, HP has also executed a project for e-mail storage and archive for the Israeli prison service.
HP developed the Kidma information system for the Israeli Prison Service which includes the prisoners management system and intelligence subs systems, helping the occupation keep illegal records on Palestinians it has abducted and their families.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Children has reported that Palestinian child prisoners are often coerced to confess by sexually threatening their family members or themselves. One such case is that of Ali Shamlawi. At age 16 he was abducted from his home by Israeli soldiers. He was caged in solitary confinement for two weeks in a filthy 1m x 3m windowless underground cell 3 floors below the surface, and then violently tortured. Then the interrogator, having looked up Ali's family details realised he has a younger sister, so he sexually threatened Ali’s younger sister to coerce a confession out of Ali of throwing stones. Once they had the false confession they sentenced Ali to 15 years imprisonment. Ali has been in prison for over three and half years now.
HP is fully complicit in these crimes.
Shame on you HP! Shame on you HP!
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
SPEECH - FREE FAYEZ SHARARY
Today there are over 7000 Palestinian political prisoners, including women and children, imprisoned by the Israeli Prison Service in HP powered prisons. One of those prisoners is Fayez Sharary. Fayez Sharary, a British citizen, father of 5 children, was abducted by Israel in September 2016 and tortured. Today he languishes in a HP powered 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.
yPalestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
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 HP powered Ofer prison 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.
I am saddened to learn that Hewlett Packard is a company that facilitates the unjust israeli prison system by husband is imprisoned in. I ask Hewlett Packard to stop putting money ahead of humanity.
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. And this company HP, whose event of the year we are outside, is fully complicit in Fayez’s torture and imprisonment.
Shame on you HP! Shame on you HP!
Free Fayez Sharary! Free Fayez Sharary!
Free Palestine!
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
HP HELPS ISRAEL IMPLEMENT APARTHEID
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has urged Israel to eradicate its "policies and practices of racial segregation and apartheid". The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court lists apartheid as a "crime against humanity".
One of the ways Israel implements its apartheid system of racial discrimination is through a stratified colour coded ID system which HP has helped produce. The type of ID one has determines how much of historic Palestine one is allowed to access. Jewish Israeli citizens are free to move and live in virtually the whole country whilst Palestinian citizens of Israel are barred from living in 68% of all towns in Israel and Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza are all restricted to their own tiny enclaves.
In 2008, HP signed a contract with the Israeli Ministry of Interior for the production and manufacturing of biometric ID cards. Since 1997 HP operates and maintains the population, immigration and border pass database system. In 2011 HP was contracted to install a population registrar system which handles replacement of passports and biometric ID's and includes the collection and archive of all people's information.
HP has also developed and maintained the Basel System - a biometric access control system with hand and facial recognition, which is used by Israel at illegal checkpoints deep inside occupied territory to restrict and control Palestinian freedom of movement in their own land. The United Nations reports that there are 522 illegal checkpoints and roadblocks obstructing Palestinian movement in the West Bank, and a further 495 ad-hoc 'flying' checkpoints each month. Checkpoints form part of the separation wall apparatus declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004. HP proudly admits developing and maintaining the Basel System but says it's to help the Palestinians as it facilitates their passage through apartheid checkpoints faster thereby helping them!
Shame on you HP! Shame on you HP!
HP SUPPORTS ISRAEL'S ILLEGAL COLONIES
According to countless United Nations Resolutions and the International Court of Justice, Israel's settler colonies on the West Bank are illegal, yet Hewlett Packard ignores this and continues to provide services to the illegal settlements.
In particular it provides services to Modi'in Illit and Ariel. This includes a data storage system for the municipality of Ariel as part of the "Smart City" project. In it's documents for the "Smart City" project for the illegal settlement of Ariel on the Occupied West Bank, Hewlett Packard refers to Ariel as being located in Israel, as capital of Samaria, with no mention of the Occupied West Bank. Palestine is completely wiped off Hewlett Packard's map that is included in its brochure, with Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights shown as an integral part of Israel.
Shame on you HP! Shame on you HP!
Clearly HP has no regard for international law. We ask the 10,000 IT executives that HP boasts are attending today’s event to search your conscience and show your support for justice by rejecting HP products. Thank you.
Free Palestine!
MORE INFO
Event callout:
http://inminds.com/article.php?id=10733
Why boycott HP?
http://inminds.com/article.php?id=10730
4Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Palestine protest outside HPE Discover 2016 #HPEDiscover2016 #BoycottHP #StopHP
Source: www.inminds.com
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