With the situation in Israel reaching critical levels of gross injustice, with no change to the heinous human rights violations against thousands of Palestinians in Israel, a number of influential civil organisations in South Africa, namely the Institute for Islamic Services, The US Consulate General in Sandton and the Pretoria Muslim Trust Sunni School (PMT in Laudium), in conjunction with unions such as SACP, COSATU, SANCO and BDS, came together to voice their concerns on the atrocities committed by the illegitimate state of Israel against Palestinians.
The organisations all conveyed one clear message to the US government, under whose watchful eyes the Israeli regime commits these crimes against humanity: "Stop supporting Apartheid Israel!"
Laudium Sun journalists captured the crowd who were addressed by the COSATU leader, S'dumo Dlamini, SACP deputy secretary general, Solly Mapaila, representative of IIS, Yusuf Mustafa and BDS's Kwara Kekana, as well as many other civil society representatives. Many learners from the PMT Sunni School braved the rainy weather to show their support for their Palestinian counterparts who are denied an education by Israel.
The contents of the memorandum, amongst other imperative demands, called for the immediate scaling or shutdown of the South African embassy in Israel, severing of economic ties with Israeli businesses, and the immediate release of almost 7000 Palestinian prisoners, especially children as young as 12, who are held under squalid prison conditions without trial. The US Consulate gave a precondition of accepting the memorandum from only one person of the marchers. This was unanimously rejected by the crowd as it was resolved that a representative from each organisation must be part of a group to hand over the memorandum. The Consulate was given an ultimatum, failure of which would result in several thousand emails and faxes sent from different organisations across the country. The successful march went into high gear with songs of freedom being sung that drew a parallel between SA Apartheid and the current Israeli Apartheid, and the Israeli and US flags were set alight by protestors.
-Submitted by IIS
Burning of the Israeli and US flags.
PMT learners were part of the crowd that gathered outside the US consulate in Sandton.