Activists Occupy the Roof of G4S HQ!

Text c/o Indymedia 


Activists are staging a rooftop occupation at the headquarters of security multinational G4S near Crawley, West Sussex, in protest at what they claim are “illegal and immoral activities” in both the UK and Palestine/Israel.

Early this morning, two activists climbed on top of the multistory building and
secured themselves in place using superglue and bike locks.

Two banners were seen hanging from the edge of the building. One read “G4S – Profiting from: Israeli Apartheid, Prison Slavery, Deadly Deportations”.

Another dozen protesters are surrounding the building on the ground, shouting slogan and holding anti-G4S placards.

G4S provides equipment to prisons inside Israel to which Palestinian political prisoners from occupied territory are transferred in violation of the Geneva Conventions, tortured and subjected to arbitrary detention.

Under Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel is forbidden to transfer Palestinian prisoners from occupied territories to prisons inside Israel. Despite this, thousands of Palestinian prisoners are unlawfully held in prisons inside Israel that are supplied by G4S. Palestinian civil society has condemned G4S' complicity with Israeli violations of international law and called for action against the company.

The company provides equipment to the Kishon and Moskobiyyeh detention facilities at which human rights organisations have documented systematic torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners, including child prisoners. A recent UK government backed delegation found that Israel is breaching at least six violations of the UN convention of the child in its treatment of child detainees.

More than 1,600 Palestinian political prisoners went on a mass hunger strike on 15th April this year. Mahmoud Sarsak ended his 92-day hunger strike on June 18 and is due to be released on 10 July, but three others remain on hunger strike in protest against their detention without trial.[4] G4S also provides equipment to Israeli in the West Bank that form part of the route of Israel’s illegal Wall and to illegal settlements.

In the UK, G4S runs six private prisons at which 400 prisoners are forced to work 40 hours a week for as little as £2 a day.

The company also runs three immigration detention centres, where detainees have made repeated claims of abuse and assault.

Last year the company lost a multi-million contract with the UK Border Agency to deport refused migrants after 773 complaints of abuse were made against it and following the death of Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan asylum seeker who died as a result of G4S security guards applying illegal restraint techniques.

Despite all this, G4S is being awarded a wide range of public service contracts, from taking over police forces and providing controversial workfare schemes and asylum accommodation on behalf of the government to providing all security at the London Olympics.

Today's protest is the latest in a new, international campaign against the controversial company. On 7th June, more than 70 people demonstrated outside the G4S Annual General Meeting and handed shareholders an “Alternative Annual Report” detailing the company's alleged violations of human rights and international law.

One of the rooftop protesters, Tom Hayes from the Boycott Israel Network, said: “UK businesses should not be profiting from the detention and mistreatment of children.”

“Brutal systems of discrimination such as Israeli Apartheid are maintained because companies like G4S are willing to do business with them, in total disregard of the human consequences and of international law. G4S is an example of a business that cynically views the practices of such regimes as good for business.”

“Action much be taken to prevent corporate complicity with Israeli violations of international law.”

The other protester, Sean Flint from No Borders UK, said:

“I wonder how many Jimmy Mubengas it will take to realise that companies like G4S don't care about people placed in their care, but are only concerned with maximising their profits, no matter what the human cost.”

“Awarding control of the police, justice and prison systems to a company with such a blatant disregard for basic human rights, as the government has shown its willingness to do, is truly frightening.”

Activists will picket the 12 July meeting of the West Midlands Police Authority. G4S is bidding for a £1.5bn contract to run Police services in the West Midlands and Surrey. 

Stop G4S policing the West Midlands

Human Rights First! Stop the Corporate takeover of Policing services

Join the lobby of West Midlands Police Authority

At 10am on Thursday 12th July outside West Midlands Police HQ, Lloyd House in Birmingham City Centre.

Learn more about the West Midlands Against Policing for Profit campaign here. 

On 12^th July West Midlands Police Authority will meet to discuss how to take forward the privatisation programme of critical police services worth £1.5bn. West Midlands against Policing for Profit is opposed to this privatisation in principle and calls for the tendering to be cancelled.

The shortlisted companies include corporate giants KBR and G4S who between them have questionable human and labour rights records from Guantanamo Bay to Iraq, from Occupied Palestine and to the treatment of asylum seekers in the UK.

If the procurement process continues after 12^th July we are calling on the Police Authority to give full consideration to the human rights records of the companies bidding for the BPP contract.  It can exclude companies from tendering on grounds of ‘grave professional misconduct’.  We are calling on the Police Authority to rigorously examine the human rights records of these companies.

KBR, is a former subsidiary of Halliburton, and has had extensive contracts from the US Government to provide services to support the military occupation of Iraq. KBR’s subcontractors have allegedly engaged in human trafficking and the use forced labour to provide services for KBR in Iraq.

KBR is one of the companies that built the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp. The facility at Guantanamo was not only used to detain people without trial and to carry out interrogations with torture, the site itself was built in a manner designed to dehumanise and terrorise those held there.

In the UK, G4S has been the subject of 700 complaints over the treatment of asylum detainees of which 130 were upheld.  G4S has been implicated in the deaths of a number of asylum seekers in its custody; in 2010 G4S lost a Home Office forcible deportation contract after the death of an Angolan deportee, Jimmy Mubenga, while being restrained on a flight back home. See the rest of this blog for further information on G4S' shady human rights record. 

G4S is also the subject of a global call for action by Palestinian civil society on the grounds it ‘helps to maintain and profit from Israel’s prison system, for its complicity with Israeli violations of international law.’

West Midlands Against Policing for Profit is asking people to support the lobby  to oppose the corporations  bidding to run these critical policing services.

Human Rights First! Stop KBR! Stop G4S! Keep up to date with campaign developments here. 

G4S News Update 4th June - 10th June

Cost cutting concerns about further prison privatisation, Public Finance, June 6th 2012: Commentators fear an erosion of professionalism in prison management as further prisons become privatised. 

Housing for asylum seekers: a multi-million pound privatised nightmare, Liberal Conspiracy, June 6th 2012: Further coverage of the evictions in Bradford and the beginning of 'Transition' in Yorkshire. 

Government asked: Why are you allowing 'tainted' G4S to handle Olympic Security, The Independent, June 8th 2012: On the day after protests outside G4S' AGM, the Independent covers the reasons why G4S are considered 'tainted' by campaigners. (Also covered at Al-Arabiya and Haaretz with a focus on G4S' involvement in West Bank security.) 

G4s face down investors and protesters at annual meeting, The Guardian, June 8th 2012: A multitude of campaigners and organisations gathered together to protest outside G4S' AGM on Thursday 7th June. Supplying visiting investors with an Alternative Report of G4S' terrible human rights abuses, the demonstration received relatively good press coverage. (More at Open Democracy) 

Don't listen to what G4S say. Look at what they do. Open Democracy, June 9th 2012: Well respected writer and commentator Laurie Penny takes a look at G4S' shaky track record before they embark on a huge security operation at the London Olympics.  

Further concerns over police privatisation in the UK, Police One, June 9th 2012: American (i think) website muses over the impact of police privatisation in the UK. (More concern highlighted about Hertfordshire Police privatisation at the Herts Advertiser 24) 

G4S to host policing Twitter debate, Info4Security, 10th June 2012: G4S are to host a debate on the role of the private sector in supporting police forces on the 12th June at 2pm. Join the debate by following @G4S_UK (necessary evils right?) and using the hashtag #policingdebate. 

Prisoner wins $40000 from G4S Custodial Services for poor safety provisions in Australian jail, The Herald Sun, 11th June 2012: Prisoner sues G4S for failing to "provide a safe sleeping environment" at a G4S run prison in Australia. Unfortunately, there's a paywall...

OTHER UPDATES//NEWS

- Palestine Place - This new social centre in Central London is a forum for radical debate and action in support of Palestine. They were key in planning the demonstration outside G4S' AGM last week. See all G4S related posts here.  

- Now, have a look at this lovely bit of G4S advertising in Kings Cross, London, (if only things were always this clear…). 

G4S AGM confronted with campaigners' Alternative Report

Today, over 70 people demonstrated outside of G4S Annual General Meeting, protesting against the company's disastrous human rights record across the globe. As G4S' becomes further involved with new UK government contracts, the extent of their national and global reach is beginning to be revealed.

The protest today saw campaigners deliver their Alternative Report to shareholders entering the meeting, a document that masqueraded as a real G4S report but actually critiqued the actions of the multi-national corporation.

Shiar Youssef, of Corporate Watch, made the following statement:

 “G4S has manoeuvred itself into a pole position to profit from the coalition government's plans to destroy public services through slashing workers' pay and sacrificing the quality of services, as well as by hiring establishment figures like former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Paul Condon as board members. Poorer services, less accountability, more profits.” 

G4S' various contracts extend from providing security services to the Israeli government in occupied Palestinian territories to managing asylum seekers' social housing in Yorkshire and Humberside. Despite the tragic incident of Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan asylum seeker who died as a result of excessive force used by a G4S guard on a forcible deportation flight, the UK government has continued to award the company new contracts in the recent surge of privatisation in public services. Not only are G4S providing security for the Olympics this summer, they are now contracted to run critical parts of the Lincolnshire Police Force.

See this Demotix news article for further coverage of today's protest.

Security firm G4S provides services to Israeli prisons, police and army

By Adri Nieuwhof (originally published here)

Screenshot of G4S Israel website, showing photos of Ofer “security” prison in the OPT (presentation of (November 2011)

British-Danish security firm G4S has been severely criticized for its operations in the occupied Palestinian territories and in prisons and detention centers in Israel, including those housing children and “administrative detainees” held without charge or trial.
On 17 April Palestinian organizations called for action against G4S for its role in Israeli prisons where Palestinian political prisoners from the occupied territories are held in contravention of international law.
The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre in London published Michael Deas’s report on the call and invited G4S to respond. G4S submitted an update with old statements that does not address the criticism of the provision of services to prisons in Israel. Meanwhile, about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners bellow out their ill-treatment in a mass hunger strike.
Who Profits - a research project of the Coalition of Women for Peace – has provided the information on G4S activities in Israel for the rejoinder below, including its extensive G4S report of March 2011.

Business as usual with private enterprises in settlements

Who Profits confirms that G4S provides security equipment and personnel to shops, supermarkets and businesses in the illegal settlements of Modi’in Illit, Ma’ale Adumim and Har Adar in the West Bank and in settlement neighborhoods of occupied East Jerusalem. Through its merger with Israeli security firm Aminut, G4S has incorporated security services to businesses in Barkan Industrial Zone in the West Bank. The continuation of Aminut’s business operations was announced on the website of G4S Israel.
Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and the annexation of East Jerusalem are illegal under international law. Numerous UN resolutions and the 2004 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Israel’s wall in the West Bank have confirmed that settlements violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention — which states that “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
Establishing businesses in the settlements entrenches the illegal settlements and may also lead to their growth. G4S assists this process by providing security services to the businesses concerned. Moreover, its action is discriminatory as services provided to the settlements cannot be used by Palestinians. G4S’s remark that “a number of contracts with private enterprises [in the West Bank] were not discriminatory or controversial” is therefore completely amiss.

Assistance to Israeli checkpoints

G4S Israel mentions its “homeland security activities” in a presentation of November 2011 (in Hebrew). The services include providing scanners to checkpoints in the “seam zone” and to Erez checkpoint in Gaza. The seam zone is located in the occupied territories between the green line — the 1949 armistice line between Israel as it was established in 1948 and the West Bank — and the wall. Who Profits ascertained that the checkpoints of Qalandia, Bethlehem and Irtah are included. The project has filed a request in the framework of the Israeli Freedom of Information Act to find out the full extent of G4S Israel’s services to checkpoints.
The system of checkpoints connected to the wall is designed to limit and control the movement of Palestinians within the West Bank. As such, the checkpoints serve Israeli settlement policies. The ICJ ruled that “the construction of the wall and its associated regime, by contributing to the demographic changes mentioned […] above, contravene Article 49, paragraph 6, of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” The “associated regime” of the wall includes the checkpoints. One can argue that by providing and servicing security equipment for the checkpoints, G4S Israel is facilitating breaches of the Geneva Convention.

Close ties with the Israeli police

There are close ties between G4S Israel and the Israeli police. G4S Israel mentions on its website that it is the sole provider of electronic security systems to the Israeli police. In its November 2011 presentation, the company confirms that it still provides security services to the Israeli police department in the West Bank. In addition, G4S Israel mentions that it provides access control systems, metal detection gates, public announcement systems, burglary detection systems, fire detection systems and building inspection systems to police stations inside Israel.
The ties between G4S and the Israeli police became even closer when - last year - the Policity group won a 25-year contract to build, operate and maintain the new Israeli police training center in the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh. G4S owns 50 percent of Policity and will be the operating contractor of the project.
G4S must be aware of the instrumental role that the Israeli police play in implementing the country’s discriminatory and repressive laws, for example in the demolition of Palestinian property, the forcible eviction of Palestinians from their homes, the repression of protests against Israeli policies, the violent blocking of Palestinians from prayer in Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the shutting down of Palestinian media. By providing services to the Israeli police, G4S has sided with the force that tramples on basic human rights.

Assistance to the Israeli Prison Service

G4S Israel is deeply involved in Israeli prisons by providing security services to all jails run by the Israeli Prison Service, including the so-called “security prisons” inside Israel and in the West Bank. The Israeli authorities label Palestinian political prisoners as “security” prisoners and the prisons where they are held are therefore called “security prisons.”
For example, G4S installed the peripheral defense systems on the walls surrounding Ofer “security” prison in the occupied territories and it operates a central control room for the entire Ofer compound which houses a military court. G4S equipped Ketziot and Megiddo “security” prisons in Israel with their entire security systems. The G4S website clearly indicates that Ketziot prison holds “2,200 security prisoners.” The same source reveals that G4S provided the central control room for the entire security system in Megiddo “security” prison where over “1,200 security prisoners” are held.
In addition, G4S provides security services to Damon “security” prison, to the detention and interrogation facilities of Abu Kabir in Jaffa, to the “Russian Compound” in Jerusalem and to “Al-Jalameh” (Kishon) detention center in Haifa. Human rights organizations have collected evidence showing that Palestinian prisoners are regularly subjected to torture and ill-treatment in these facilities. Cell 36 of Al Jalame prison is one the cells where Palestinian children are locked in solitary confinement for days or even weeks, wrote The Guardian in January.

On Palestinian Prisoners Day - 17 April 2012 - families protested the detention of their relatives in Israeli jails. (Photo: Anne Paq - ActiveStills)

(Anne Paq / ActiveStills)

Israel systematically denies Palestinian political prisoners their basic rights, including the right to a fair trial and to protection from arbitrary detention which are enshrined in international law. At present, Israel holds over 300 Palestinians - including 27 lawmakers - in arbitrary detention, which is also known as administrative detention.

In addition, Israel is not allowed to transfer Palestinian prisoners from the occupied territories to prisons in Israel, because Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits this. Thousands of Palestinian prisoners are thus unlawfully held in prisons in Israel. By delivering essential security services to prisons in Israel, G4S is assisting Israel in these violations of international law.
In its response to Deas’s report, G4S keeps silent about its services to the Israeli Prison Service. It is obvious that the company has no intention to exit these contracts.

Legal advice to G4S criticized

Following fierce criticism of G4S involvement in the Israeli occupation, the company engaged Professor Hjalte Rasmussen to review its business in the West Bank and to provide a legal opinion. During a three-day trip to Israel and the West Bank, Rasmussen visited a number of banks and supermarkets in East Jerusalem, and a shopping mall in the settlement of Maale Adumim. He also collected information from G4S in London and Israel. Rasmussen did not visit Israeli prisons.
At the time, Dan Church Aid and Amnesty International Denmark expressed their discontent about the poor quality of Rasmussen’s report; the former described it as “shameful” because it contains so many errors. The Secretary General of Amnesty International Denmark, Lars Normann Jorgensen, said that “a case as serious as this one requires more thorough observations in the areas concerned than Hjalte Rasmussen has done.”
Nonetheless, G4S writes to Business & Human Rights that Rasmussen concluded that “G4S did not violate any national or international law.” Given its weaknesses, G4S would be ill-advised to rely solely on Rasmussen’s opinion in concluding that their activities do not violate international law.

Contractual obligations no justification for continued complicity in the occupation

However, G4S concluded that it “would aim to exit a number of contracts which involved the servicing of security equipment at the barrier checkpoints, a prison and a police station in the West Bank,” explicitly excluding the provision of services to private enterprises in the settlements. In addition, G4S shows no intention of terminating its services to prisons in Israel. As long as G4S is in any way involved in the detention of Palestinian political prisoners in Israel or the West Bank, it is not moving in the right direction.
Moreover, exiting the contracts concerning the checkpoints, a prison and a police station in the West Bank might take until 2015. The company decided that it needs the permission of its clients – who are engaged in implementing the occupation and repression - to exit the contracts before the expiry date. Contractual obligations to Israeli state organizations cannot justify the company’s continued complicity in the occupation.
G4S should therefore remain a target of the international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement as long as it continues to deliver services to the Israeli police, the Ministry of Defense, the Israeli Prison Service, the Israeli army, and the settlement businesses of any other client, since they are all key activities in the oppression of the Palestinian people.