25th January 2017, www.inminds.com
On Friday 27th January 2017, Inminds human rights group will protest outside BETT 2017 in London, at the inclusion of Hewlett Packard, a company implicated in the torture and killing of children in Palestine, at the worlds leading education technology event BETT which attracts over 35,000 teachers and others in the education sector from around the world.
Inminds chair Abbas Ali said "The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has identified Hewlett Packard as one of the top 20 arms companies in the US. They are guilt of providing the IT backbone of the Israel military which according to UNICEF destroyed 258 schools and kindergardens in Gaza in 2014, slaughtering 521 children in the process. HP is also guilty of providing essential IT services and infrastructure that keeps Israel's dungeons and torture dens operational. This is where, according to the United Nations Rights of the Child, Israel tortures and sexually abuses young children. We are shocked that a company complicit in these war crimes against children is invited to a teachers educational event. The only thing they teach is death, they have no place in the classroom."
Inminds chair Abbas Ali added "We are also demanding the immediate release of Palestinian aid worker Mohammed Khalil al-Halabi, who has been languishing in a HP powered Israeli dungeon since June 2016. Mohammed Halabi has been awarded "Humanitarian Hero" award by the United Nations for his work with children in Gaza for the Christian charity World Vision. With his arrest and the freezing of their bank accounts in Jerusalem by Israel, World Vision has been forced to closed down operations in Gaza, immediately putting at risk the the lives of the 40,000 children that it provides for in Gaza. Israel is not content with bombing children in Gaza, it is now after those children that survived the slaughter and those humanitarians who care for them!"
A message from the family of Mohammed Khalil al-Halabi will be read out at the protest.
Mohammed El Halabi, World Vision's Area Development Programme Manager in Gaza,
meets with children displaced by the violence during the brief ceasefire.
Photo by Mohammad Awed
The campaign to free Mohammed Khalil al-Halabi was launched on 14th January with a projection on the walls of the Palace of Westminster calling for his freedom.
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