Mid Ulster Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign to hold protest outside Castledawson factory

The Mid Ulster Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (Mid Ulster IPSC), along with the Derry IPSC are to hold a protest on Tuesday, July 1 at 7pm outside Moyola Precision Engineering in Castledawson.

The protest will be attended by speakers Bernadette McAliskey, and Goretti Horgan and Eamonn McCann of the Raytheon 9. 

A spokesperson said: “The protest will call for the firm to immediately divest from manufacturing parts for F-35s, the same warplanes currently committing genocide in Palestine. Protesters will hold InvestNI and those who run it responsible for public funds going to complicit factories across the country. 

“The protest will be in full solidarity with Palestine Action, and against the disgraceful attempt by the British Government to classify peaceful, anti-genocide protestors as terrorists, all whilst the British Government themselves send arms to Israel, fully complicit in genocide.”

The spokesperson continued: “Israel use F-35 fighter jets as a primary source of bomb delivery on Gaza, and Moyola Precision Engineering, recipient of InvestNI funds, continues to proudly boast of their supply of F-35 parts as well as critical components for missiles and guidance platforms.”

“On their website this falls within their category of ‘Defence’, however F-35s are not used as a defence against resistance forces, they are not used to defend against a non-existent Palestinian air force, they are not used to defend against homemade rockets but they are used to drop one tonne bunker busters on Gazan hospitals, schools, universities, places of worship, refugee camps and tented villages killing tens of thousands of people mostly women and children.

“Article IV of the Genocide Convention states that ‘persons’ may be held liable for genocidal acts.

“According to the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, the prohibition to commit genocide is an international law norm from which no party, including corporations can derogate. In situations of armed conflict, international standards apply to corporations and individual business leaders, who must consider whether their operations contribute to violations.”

The spokesperson said that they are calling on the company to 'divest from products which can be used in the Gaza genocide, particularly F-35 parts'.

Recently the Mid Ulster IPSC held a protest at the gates of Moyola demanding an immediate divestment of F-35 components, and for InvestNI to be held accountable. The group along with Lurgan IPSC, Newry IPSC and other groups, helped organise the Great March for Gaza, where thousands of people marched 25 miles, the length of the Gaza Strip from Lurgan to Omeath on June 7, also calling for an immediate end to factories complicit in the creation of parts for warplanes.

“Invest NI, part of the Department for the Economy run by Minister Caoimhe Archibald, has given over £19 million pounds of public money to companies based in Belfast, Crumlin, Newtownabbey, Dunmurry and Castledawson who make parts for F-35 warplanes,” continued the spokesperson.

“Research undertaken by ActNow has uncovered more of the extent of the InvestNI scandal, and the government is currently undergoing a lawsuit on the matter from Madden & Finucane Solicitors/Cairde Palestine.

“Currently in Gaza 2.2 million people are being deliberately starved to death by Israel and slaughtered by the unrelenting bombing with arms supplied by the US, EU and UK.

“Meanwhile the British government is attempting to proscribe as a terrorist organisation a peaceful solidarity group whilst themselves terrorising the Palestinian people. Palestine Action has never harmed a single person, these brave activists have merely done their legal duty in trying to stop the world’s first live-streamed genocide. 

“The world is awakening to the Israeli genocidal machine and its terrorist leaders.

“We stand with Palestine Action, and call on Moyola to divest from products which can be used in the Gaza genocide, particularly F-35 parts.”