| Story + photos of action at Currys PC World as part of the international Stop HP week of action – CLICK HERE |
Trade unionists! Click here for a model motion on the HP Boycott for your branch.Sunday 27 November 2016
In Brighton & Hove, we have launched a local campaign to support of the international boycott of Hewlett-Packard (HP), aimed at raising awareness of HP’s complicity in the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine and Israel’s racist system of apartheid.
The local campaign got off to a roaring start on Saturday 15th November 2014, with street theatre and a shop occupation, targeting Curry’s PC World in Western Road in central Brighton. You can read a report of the demo, with photographs, here. The demo was also reported as a news feed on the Ethical Consumer website: ‘Palestine Activists Target Hewlett-Packard’.
UPDATE: Brighton & Hove Trades Union Council has unanimously passed a motion of support for our campaign against HP. Read more here.
Background to the HP Campaign
HP is a major player in the israeli military-industrial complex and in the occupation of Palestine, supplying electronic equipment at checkpoints and prisons and to the israeli military. HP an integral part of building up of a surveillance database on every Palestinian in the West Bank.
HP has been a priority target for BDS campaigners in the USA for some time, and has recently been adopted as a priority target in the UK by the Boycott Israel Network. You can find out more about the campaign on the following sites:
The case against HP (PSC website)
Boycott against complicit companies (BDS website)
Why Hewlett Packard? (Global Exchange website)
Who Profits? website
In Passover message, rabbis call for divestment from Hewlett-Packard (Electronic Intifada)
Support Divestment from HP (Jewish Voices for Peace)
Palestinian prisoner groups have called on the international BDS movement to target HP, due to HP’s deep involvement in israel’s prisons.
Campaigning in the USA has focused on HP factories, but there is no HP factory in the UK so campaigning must focus on the company in other ways. The strategy for HP campaign nationally is to target high street retail stockists in the run-up to Xmas, and then in the New Year to focus on divestment by e.g. local councils, universities, trade unions.