By signing up to be an Apartheid Free Zone in Scotland, we are declaring our solidarity with the Palestine people and their struggle for freedom, justice and equality. This means that we endorse the Palestinian civil society calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights.
As an Apartheid Free Zone we are answering the BDS Call from representatives of Palestinian civil society to international civil society organisations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. We pledge to adhere to the call to boycott and isolate the state of Israel and will work with the Apartheid Free Zones Scotland campaign to determine what this means for us in practice.
By becoming an Apartheid Free Zone, we recognise that the Palestinian people are engaged in an anti-racist struggle facing ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide. We reject all forms of racism and racial discrimination and support the principles set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” and everyone is entitled to all fundamental rights and freedoms “without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”