Private security firm G4S to divest from Israel after years-long campaign by BDS activists

The divestment comes after more than a decade-long campaign by the BDS against the company which resulted in several high-profile investors selling their stakes

June 05, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch
BDS against Israeli company G4S
A protest against G4S. (Photo: via BDS/Palestine Chronicle)

After a sustained campaign by the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and other rights organizations, G4S, the world’s biggest private and corporate security company, announced on Thursday, June 1 that it will divest completely from Israel. The announcement by Allied Universal, the parent company of G4S, comes after years of campaigns to demand that the company respect international law and the human rights of Palestinians, especially prisoners. Besides the occupied Palestinian territories, G4S has also been accused of being complicit in human rights violations and other abuses in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, United States, South Africa, among others.

The campaign against G4S launched in 2012 by Palestinian prisoners’ rights groups, along with human rights organizations, was in support of a massive hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israel against their brutal and inhumane treatment. It led to a number of companies, organizations, and charitable foundations divesting from G4S in the following years. These include the Church of Sweden, the United Methodist Church, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a Kuwaiti investment fund, along with a number of United Nations agencies. This global pressure first forced the company to divest from Israel’s prison system, military checkpoints, and illegal settlements, the BDS statement added.

The company now has also divested from the consortium that operates Policity, Israel’s police academy. The stake is being sold to an Israeli company called G1.

Since the global campaign was launched more than a decade ago, a number of protests have taken place against the company and its investors. Two years ago, dozens of human rights groups and civil society organizations in Palestine and around the world had sent a letter to G4S’ parent company, urging it to end its ties with the Israeli occupation and comply with international laws. The relentless campaign also resulted in members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and lawmakers in other countries to call for an end to their countries’ engagement with G4S.

The BDS movement, in a statement regarding the development, said that “this victory follows over a decade of campaigning against G4S for its deep complicity in Israel’s grave human rights violations against Indigenous Palestinians. Activists in cities, universities, churches, and unions worldwide have successfully brought a number of corporate giants to their knees and forced them to divest from apartheid Israel following years of dedicated campaigning, and we can now count G4S among them. Investing in apartheid has always been immoral. BDS is proving it is also prohibitively costly as well.“ 

It especially recognized the work and contribution of activists in Quebec, as well as others around the world, who it said “worked hard these last few years, pushing the company to part with its last remaining stake in apartheid Israel.”