Latest news with #Palestinian-led
CairoScene
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CairoScene
Why Are Artists Boycotting Sónar Festival 2025?
Why Are Artists Boycotting Sónar Festival 2025? Over 70 artists have dropped out of Sónar 2025 over ties to KKR, an investment giant linked to arms and Israeli military tech. More than 70 artists have pulled out of Sónar Festival 2025 in protest of its ownership ties to KKR, a global investment firm linked to weapons manufacturing, surveillance technology, and Israeli military contracts. What began as a quiet call to accountability has grown into a full-blown boycott campaign, raising urgent questions about the politics behind music festival funding. KKR—short for Kohlberg Kravis Roberts—acquired Superstruct Entertainment in 2020. Superstruct owns or controls more than 80 festivals worldwide, including Sónar, Outlook, DGTL, and Parookaville. With the ongoing genocide in Gaza and heightened scrutiny over financial complicity, artists and activists are demanding transparency about who funds the events they participate in, and what those companies profit from. The boycott was spearheaded by the Palestinian-led BDS movement, which called Sónar's relationship with KKR 'involuntary complicity in genocide.' That statement struck a chord. In a matter of days, artists like Ikonika, Florentino, Manuka Honey, and ABADIR publicly canceled their scheduled appearances. Egyptian artist ABADIR wrote: 'I can't participate in good conscience… This is about anti-racism and solidarity.' Sónar initially responded by stating that it 'promotes respect for human rights.' But as pressure mounted, the festival issued a second statement on May 19th, saying: 'We have no control over KKR's investments, and we express solidarity with Gaza's civilians.' It added, 'No ownership structure will define who we are.' But many aren't buying it. Amsterdam's DGTL Festival, also owned by Superstruct, released a much firmer statement acknowledging that 'KKR's investments are unethical' and promising to reassess its affiliations. Even Boiler Room came under fire after launching a pro-Palestine fundraising campaign while remaining silent about its own past ties to KKR, a contradiction that artists and audiences were quick to point out. For many, the issue is not just about Gaza. It's about the role of music in systems of oppression. As stages grow larger and more corporate, the decisions about who profits from culture, and who is erased by it, are no longer invisible.
Middle East Eye
3 days ago
- General
- Middle East Eye
Amid Gaza food distribution chaos, Palestinian-led group steps up
Hala Sabbah's team has spent weeks trying to source a bag of flour in Gaza. 'We're not finding flour - or at least clean flour. It's all infested or mixed with sand,' she told Middle East Eye, speaking from London. Sabbah works with a Palestinian-led mutual aid group, coordinating with local volunteers who purchase and distribute supplies in Gaza, using funds raised through the project. Over a year ago, Sabbah and two other members of the Palestinian diaspora launched the Sameer Project - a grassroots initiative named in honour of Sabbah's uncle, who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza. Amid Israel's ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip since 2 May, which has cut off all aid and forced many NGOs to suspend their services, their work has become even more challenging. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters With flour scarce, the group has turned to rice distribution, but Sabbah is still doing all she can to find a bag of flour. 'People in Gaza really prefer bread. If you give them a plate of rice or a piece of bread, they will always take the bread,' Sabbah explained to MEE. On Tuesday, a fledgling US-backed initiative to distribute aid via private contractors descended into chaos, as Israeli forces opened fire on starving Palestinians near the aid hub, killing three and wounding at least 46 others. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said it distributed just 14,000 boxes - each containing only 1,750 calories - well below the 2,100-calorie per day minimum set by the World Health Organization (WHO) for emergency meals. For Sabbah, the contents of the GHF parcels were not just inadequate, but 'offensive". 'There were no vegetables, no meat, no fruit - nothing fresh,' Sabbah said. The entire enterprise runs starkly counter to the work she and her colleagues have been doing over the last year - working closely with Palestinians in Gaza and adapting quickly to respond to the needs of those on the ground. Agile and flexible Sabbah coordinates the Sameer Project with two other Palestinians living in the diaspora - California-based Lena Dajani, who organises medical aid, and an anonymous activist who runs the Instagram page, 'Translating Falasteen'. The trio have raised thousands of dollars and coordinated with people on the ground in Gaza to respond to requests for food, medicine and emergency aid via Whatsapp groups. With a skeleton team and a strong web of contacts, the group is agile and flexible in their approach, able to adapt quickly to the daily flurry of requests. While Israel's ongoing blockade has forced many international NGOs to halt or curtail their services in Gaza, the small network has doggedly pursued its work. 'Our biggest struggle is food. So, right now a plate of rice is around 8.5 dollars, with commission it adds up to over $10. This is a plate of rice that's barely enough for two people,' Sabbah said. A Palestinian child receives a Sameer Project food parcel (Supplied) The project also has to contend with war profiteering by armed gangs who loot and hoard the scraps of aid that have made it past the border, reportedly under Israeli military protection. But the Sameer Project's agility means they can buy products from a variety of sources, from street vendors and traders, unlike big NGOs which bring in their own aid and equipment through the border. 'These international organisations run under western frameworks are super process heavy and bureaucratic. They're not flexible, they're not agile. They don't make exceptions. They spend a lot on overhead,' Sabbah said. 'We create our own invoices, we just find a way to make it work. We don't stall the process'. 'Our end goal is the liberation of Palestine' Water distribution is another urgent task. The group rents two water trucks, which transport around 100,000 litres a day from desalination plants in the north of the Strip, where Israeli attacks have destroyed much of the infrastructure. The water costs around $46 per 1,000 litres, according to the group. 'After the [January] ceasefire, suddenly you had almost a million people move up north in the space of a week. In places like Jabalia and Beit Lahia, there's no infrastructure whatsoever,' Sabbah told MEE. 'We made sure that we delivered to those places that are not reachable to aid organisations, that don't have wells or where the infrastructure has been completely ruined'. Scarcity of clean water means children have to haul heavy jerry cans of water over long distances. The project recently documented a case of a child who tore his groin due to the weight of the jerry can he was carrying. 'The men of the family have to go and look for food or try to make money… so, that leaves the kids to go and get the water,' Sabbah said. A Palestinian child sits near Sameer Project water deliveries in Gaza City's Al Shati camp (Supplied) Sabbah emphasised that the project is not just driven by the urgent humanitarian demand on the ground. The water deliveries in Gaza's north for example, are needed to keep the areas habitable. 'Our end goal is the liberation of Palestine and making sure that everyone stays on their land,' she said. 'So, part of our way to support people in returning to their homes, even though they're completely destroyed, is to make sure that at least they have access to water and food'. Putting out a fire with a drop of water Shortages of medical supplies and personnel mean the group also has to scramble to plug the gaping holes in Gaza's severely-damaged health system. The group's medical coordinator, Lena Dajani, receives some 25 critical patient referrals via Instagram and Whatsapp daily, which she passes onto a medical point at the Refaat Al Areer camp, which the project set up in central Gaza to ease the burden on the Strip's hospitals. The medical point then contacts the patients, and Dajani purchases the medication, which has become nearly impossible to source due to the Israeli blockade. However, by being plugged into a network of pharmacies and clinics, Dajani is still able to meet most of the requests she receives. 'For one patient, we have to call maybe 10 pharmacies to just find a simple medication, and then we only give them a month's worth, because we obviously have to spread that amount between all the patients that need immediate care,' Dajani told MEE. The scarcity and soaring cost of medication is producing rising cases of treatable conditions. 'Epilepsy is really rampant, and they just cannot afford their seizure medication,' Dajani said. With hunger stalking Gaza, the project has been inundated with malnutrition cases amongst children. At least 60 are reported to have died since October 2023. 'Epilepsy is really rampant, and they just cannot afford their seizure medication,' -Lena Dajani, Sameer Project co-founder Despite baby formula being hard to come by, the group managed to buy around $51,000 in nutritional supplements. With the blockade and escalating Israeli attacks halting Unrwa and WHO-led efforts to control viral outbreaks across the enclave, the group now treats 300-500 patients a day for skin rashes, scabies, eye infections, and viral and bacterial diseases. 'Scabies cream is also incredibly difficult to source. You're supposed to take it over a long period of time. We're trying to put out a fire with a drop of water,' Dajani told MEE. The project is also grappling with cases of children with respiratory and gastrointestinal infections, due to drinking contaminated water. In one case, a three-year-old drank a bottle of detergent thinking it was water. The project rushed the child to hospital to have their stomach pumped. Painkillers and insulin are also near impossible to source. The nerve blocker Gabapentin was being widely used as an alternative painkiller - although even this is also now unavailable. 'We had a patient who had shrapnel lodged in his brain, and it's causing him so much pain that when he's off his medication, he smashes things around him because he is in so much pain,' Dajani told MEE. There are no wheelchairs in Gaza. Along with crutches and cochlear implants, the Israeli authorities consider them to be "dual use" items, meaning they could be used for "military purposes". Dajani has to wait for someone to pass away in order to buy one from a medical supplier. The chairs cost $550 each, with payment in cash - which is also difficult to come by in Gaza, with commission rates soaring to 35 percent. 'The entire healthcare system is now almost entirely being propped up by smaller groups like ours, who can source on the ground, who can take out cash at 35 percent,' Dajani said. 'Whereas the organisations with all these processes aren't standing up to Israel to allow them to operate here. We're not waiting. We're taking action'. No case like Gaza For Sabbah, the unravelling of the GHF came as no surprise. She said the fiasco is reflective of problems with international aid in Gaza. 'A lot of them come in with their own agendas. They have a lot of red tape. There's a lot of things that they can't do,' Sabbah said. Most importantly, she noted that international organisations lack cultural sensitivity and an understanding of Gaza. The Sameer Project had attempted to work with a US-led mutual aid group who wanted them to construct long drop toilets. 'They told us 'We need to do long drop toilets, because this is what we do in the US, and it's the best way to do toilets',' Sabbah said. When Sabbah explained this method was not practiced in Gaza, the group refused to work with them. 'Dehumanisation by design': US-Israeli Gaza aid operation descends into chaos Read More » 'There are always these impositions by western organisations, enforcing what they call international standards, which in reality were written by people from the West who have never experienced a genocide or a siege for 19 months,' Sabbah said. 'Our mutual aid group and a couple of others that we really trust, centre the people in Gaza,' she added. 'We're not here to manage the initiative. We are here to facilitate, we're here to make sure the money gets to the right hands'. For Sabbah and her colleagues, this is the only way to help people in Gaza, to let them dictate the aid they require, rather than having it imposed on them by NGOs headquartered in the global north. 'There's no case that is similar to Gaza,' Sabbah said. 'There have been genocides that happened for long periods of time, but a siege on top of that, and also an intentional famine all happening at the same time with no one being able to leave. 'I think that, after 12 plus years of working in NGOs and international organisations, I assure you, the UN would have had massive challenges in making this work, let alone an organisation like GHF that's run by a bunch of snipers and mercenaries."
Morocco World
25-04-2025
- Business
- Morocco World
Indie Game Pulled from Xbox in Protest of Microsoft's Role in Gaza Genocide
Rabat — Indie game label Ice Water Games has pulled its project Tenderfoot Tactics from the Xbox store, citing support for the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which added Microsoft's Xbox to its priority boycott list earlier in April. 'We hope that Microsoft will listen to the voices of their workers and customers and stop all business with the criminal Israeli military, which we have watched conduct an open genocide in Gaza over the last 18 months,' the label stated via social media. On April 7, BDS designated Microsoft a priority target, calling it 'perhaps the most complicit tech company in Israel's illegal occupation, apartheid regime, and ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza.' The movement has accused Microsoft of deep integration with the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and prison system — pointing to the company's Azure cloud and AI services, which are used by the IOF and are integral to the technological machinery driving Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza. 'After 34 years of direct complicity with Israel's military, the Israeli army now relies heavily on Microsoft to meet the technological needs of its genocide and apartheid regime,' BDS declared in a statement. Calling on global consumers to boycott Microsoft's gaming products, BDS laid out different levels of action — from canceling Xbox subscriptions, boycotting flagship titles such as Call of Duty, Minecraft, and Candy Crush, to boycotting all of the company's products. Microsoft's addition to the BDS priority list came in the wake of the firing of Moroccan engineer Ibtihal Aboussad, who confronted company executives about its involvement in Israeli atrocities during a live presentation at Microsoft's Redmond headquarters. 'Mustafa, shame on you,' Aboussad told Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman. 'You claim to care about using AI for good, but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli military. Fifty thousand people have died, and Microsoft powers this genocide in our region.' In February, the Associated Press released an investigation exposing how US tech firms have been aiding Israel in accelerating its kill-chain capabilities in Gaza and Lebanon. The findings revealed that Microsoft and OpenAI technologies have become increasingly embedded in Israel's indiscriminate killing of Palestinains since October 2023. At least 50,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 113,000 injured since the start of Israel's genocide on Gaza almost 19 months ago. These numbers are conservative estimates based on health facility records, while thousands remain buried under rubble or have been obliterated beyond recognition by Israel's weapons.
Arab News
15-04-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Police register case after dozen suspects attack KFC in Rawalpindi over Gaza war
ISLAMABAD: Police said on Tuesday a case for 'rioting and abusive behavior' had been filed after around a dozen people attacked a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant with sticks, abusing staff and customers while referring to the war in Gaza. Last week, KFC and Domino's Pizza outlets were attacked in the cities of Karachi and Lahore also, causing some damage but no injuries, with police describing the assaults as being motivated by anger over Israel's war in Gaza. Boycott campaigns have hit Western brands in many Muslim countries since the start of the war in October 2023, spearheaded by the BDS Movement, a global, Palestinian-led campaign advocating for non-violent pressure on Israel to respect Palestinian rights under international law. The movement calls for the boycott of certain companies and organizations that it says have invested in Israel or donate to its military and are directly profiting from its economy. While not officially on the BDS boycott list, KFC has faced backlash from pro-Palestinian advocates in many countries who believe the brand's operations in Israel contribute to the conflict, but the company maintains it is non-political and denies supporting the Israeli military or government. 'A case of rioting and abusive behavior at a branch of a fast-food chain in the Cantt area has been registered,' Rawalpindi police said in a statement. 'The case was filed under the complaint of the branch manager at the Cantt police station. The involved suspects have been identified after the case was registered.' The statement said 10-12 individuals armed with sticks entered the branch and started using abusive language toward staff members and customers. In videos of the episode widely shared on social media, the ransackers can be heard referring to the killings of 'innocent women and children' in Gaza as they beat the main counter of the fast-food chain as well as chairs and tables with sticks and shout at people to leave. 'The suspects will be arrested and brought to justice. Police personnel have been deployed at branches of international food chains,' the police statement added. 'Lawlessness, rioting, and misconduct with citizens will not be tolerated under any circumstances. A clear message has been sent that anyone violating the law and engaging in rioting will be dealt with firmly.' The previous attacks in Karachi and Lahore were widely blamed on the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) religious-political party, known to lead violent protests in the country, most prominently in support of blasphemy laws and to call on the government to cut diplomatic ties with Western nations where Qur'an desecrations have taken place and caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) made. However, TLP spokesperson Rehan Mohsin Khan distanced the party from the attacks and told Arab News last week that while TLP's stance on the Palestine issue was 'clear,' violent protests were 'not part of our policy.' 'If one or two members of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan were present among the protesters out of their love for Gaza, it does not mean that it was the policy of the party or we support violence,' he said. 'We are in favor of peaceful protests, and we are trying to pressure the Pakistani government to officially boycott all these products.'
The Independent
06-04-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Britain expresses outrage after Israel prevents 2 lawmakers from visiting the occupied West Bank
Britain expressed outrage after Israeli authorities prevented two lawmakers from entering the country in order to visit the occupied West Bank. Israel accused the members of parliament of supporting boycotts against it. Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy said late Saturday that it was 'unacceptable, counterproductive and deeply concerning' that two British members of parliament were detained and refused entry to Israel. 'I have made clear to my counterparts in the Israeli government that this is no way to treat British parliamentarians," he said. Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang said they were 'astounded at the unprecedented step taken by the Israeli authorities to refuse British MPs entry on our trip to visit the occupied West Bank." 'It is vital that parliamentarians are able to witness firsthand the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory," they said, adding that they had planned to visit humanitarian aid projects and local communities. Medical Aid for Palestinians, a charity that helped organize the visit, said the two were questioned upon arrival at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport before being denied entry and deported. A statement from Israeli authorities accused the two lawmakers of having called for boycotts of Israel and said they were not visiting as part of an official delegation. Israeli law prohibits the entry of non-citizens and non-residents who support the Palestinian-led international boycott movement, known as Boycott, Divest and Sanctions, or BDS. Supporters portray BDS as nonviolent activism based on a similar campaign against apartheid South Africa. Israel views the movement as an attack on its very legitimacy and accuses some organizers of antisemitism, allegations they deny. In February, Israel denied entry to two European Union lawmakers, accusing one of promoting boycotts of the country. ___
