Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Boycott HP: Technology of Israeli apartheid

"There are clear parallels between HP’s biometric access control system as currently employed to confine and control Palestinian movement in Israel/ Palestine and the racist passbook ID system used by South Africa’s apartheid government, for which the U.S.-based Polaroid Corporation provided imaging services.  In the 1970s, there was a boycott and divestment campaign targeting Polaroid for its complicity in South African apartheid.  The campaign was eventually successful, andPolaroid’s dramatic 1977 withdrawal from South Africa increased pressure on other complicit companies across the globe, accelerating international efforts to end South African apartheid.  Leaders of the Polaroid boycott and divestment campaign, such as Caroline Hunter, the Polaroid employee who discovered her company’s role in South Africa and helped launch the boycott campaign, are today calling for a boycott of HP companies." (thanks Ami)