Vancouver Locally-based activists, called out by the Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign (BIAC), held a picket line at the Port of Vancouver's Delta Port facility at Roberts Bank, south of Vancouver, as part of a mounting international campaign to put pressure on the government of Israel.
The Israeli ship Zim Djibouti, owned by Zim, one of the ten largest shipping companies in the world, landed at Delta Port this morning.
The behaviour of the Israeli government has been going from bad to worse, explained BIAC spokesperson Gordon Murray. We are going to be out there today to tell Zim and other Israeli companies that their business won't be allowed to continue normally as long as Israel's blockade on Gaza continues, he said.
The israeli government is guilty of war crimes, said Mike Krebs, the other BIAC spokesperson for the demonstration. People from Vancouver are coming out to emulate actions that have already been taken in South Africa, Scandinavia, India and Oakland, California, where Israeli ships have been prevented from unloading their cargo in a normal manner.
Israel has been violating international law and acting with impunity for far too long, Murray said. It's obvious to us that they won't change their behaviour unless their forced to, he concluded.
The action is in response to a call sent out by Palestinian civil society to disrupt Israeli shipping following the killing of nine Turkish and American activists by Israeli naval commandos on the Freedom Flotilla that was trying to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza last May.
http://www.boycottisraeliapartheid.org/node/57
