SA coalition demands accountability and justice for Palestinians in upcoming march

Organisers of Saturday's mass march in support of Palestine, have called on communities, trade unions, student movements, faith groups, and civil society organisations to lend their names and support to what they describe as a historic mobilisation for justice.

The demonstration is expected to draw one of the largest crowds ever assembled in South Africa in support of the Palestinian cause.

On Thursday, the Muslim Judicial Council (MJC-SA), Al-Quds Foundation South Africa (AQF-SA), the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC), and other civil society and faith-based organisations held a media briefing to highlight the main issues behind the protest.

PSC coordinator Professor Usuf Chikte said the march will push for the domestication of international conventions into South African law so that alleged crimes can be prosecuted locally.

“We have signed the Geneva Convention, we have signed the Apartheid Convention,” he said.

“All legal scholars say that Israel is doing apartheid, and we want to invoke that and domesticate it into South African law. It is a key and primary demand of the march. We want to have that bill passed in Parliament.”

The coalition singled out multinational companies and charity organisations, saying they are complicit.

“We want that to be dealt with in terms of the law,” Chikte said.

Activists also called for tighter controls on money flowing from South Africa to Israel.

“These so-called charitable organisations have been listed in Francesca Albanese’s report, and they engage in criminal activity, aiding and abetting, and being complicit in the genocide, in the settlements, in the recruitment of soldiers. That is what we want to stop.”

The coalition’s demands include accountability for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and oversight by Parliament’s Justice Portfolio Committee.

“We want the NPA to account, and we want oversight to ensure that we don’t have a situation where we feed the Israeli army,” said Chikte.

“The question is: why is there this inaction? Why is there no prosecution, even though none of these individuals had permission to act, in clear contravention of the regulations under the Foreign Military Assistance Act? Parliament must hold them accountable for what they are failing to do."

Other actions being called for include trade sanctions and cultural and academic boycotts.

“We want to see that Israel is kicked out of FIFA as an immediate demand. We must stop our universities from collaborating with the Israeli universities, which facilitate policies and provide the human resources for the production of agents in the genocide over there.”

MJC President Shaykh Riyadh Fataar said Saturday’s event would be one of the largest mass marches for Palestine in recent history.

“The march will commence at 11am at Muir Street Mosque in District Six and proceed to Parliament, where demonstrators will demand urgent and decisive action from the South African government in response to the ongoing genocide and the forced starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.

“Since the establishment of the rogue, genocidal state of apartheid Israel, the Palestinian people have been subjected to systemic dispossession, displacement, and apartheid. Millions of Palestinians were violently uprooted from their homes during the Nakba and have endured over seven decades of occupation, military aggression, settlement expansion, and economic strangulation. Israel has been killing, starving people, and stealing since 1948.”

He noted that the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in its historic ruling, found a plausible case that Israel is committing acts of genocide in Gaza.

“This judgment places a binding obligation upon all states, including South Africa, to take every possible measure to prevent genocide and to refrain from aiding or abetting it.”

Shaykh Ebrahim Gabriels, director of Al-Quds Foundation SA, said: “This is not simply a march of solidarity, it is a march of conscience. South Africa must take concrete steps to ensure that its policies, trade relations, and financial systems do not enable the continued extermination of Palestinians.”

“We call on all peace-loving and justice-loving South Africans to join us. Our nation, which once stood united against apartheid, cannot be silent in the face of oppression and extermination. To remain silent is to be complicit.”

Cape Times