Agencies-Gaza post
Catalonia’s regional assembly declares Israel to be guilty of “apartheid crimes”
Yesterday, the regional parliament of Catalonia’s semi-autonomous government passed a resolution acknowledging Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians, making it the first European parliament to do so.
Israel is accused of using a system that is “contrary to international law and akin to the crime of apartheid as established in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,” according to the resolution.
“Parliament, the first European institution to declare that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people, as documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch,” Catalonia’s left-wing En Comu Podem party stated in a tweet welcoming the vote.
Susana Segovia Sánchez, a politician, was quoted in the tweet as saying: “This is a watershed moment in history. Today, we call out the violation of Palestinian human rights by name.”
According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the resolution calls on the administration of the semi-autonomous territory and the central Spanish government to hold Israel accountable for apartheid.
The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), which represents the widest coalition of Palestinian civil society, applauded the Catalan Parliament for passing a resolution recognizing and condemning Israel’s apartheid against the Palestinian people.
“With this historic vote, Catalonia’s Parliament becomes the first in Europe to publicly admit that “Israel’s system in the Occupied [Palestinian] Territories is in violation of international law.”
The Palestinian BDS National Committee said it expects the Catalan government and the Spanish state government to ban trade with Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise, as well as suspend direct and indirect military and security trade with Israel, as a result of the Catalan Parliament resolution.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch joined a number of Palestinian and Israeli rights organizations in labeling Israel as an apartheid state in February 2022 and April 2021, respectively.
Amnesty International called on the United Nations in its February 2022 report.
