ISM activists participated in an action to shut down an Ahava store in Covent Garden on Saturday January 10th, timed to coincide with the national demo in London.
Ahava, an Israeli cosmetics company, sells produce from apartheid settlements in the West Bank (all Israeli settlements are illegal under international law).
The shop was closed from 11am, and the police didn’t managed to remove the activists from the shop until 4.30pm, they shop was forced to close for the duration of the action. Three activists were arrested and, as they refused to give their names to police, only to a judge, have skipped the police bail stage of the legal process and have already been charged with aggravated trespass.
The action aimed to draw public attention to Ahava’s involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The West Bank is Palestinian territory which was occupied by the Israeli army at the end of the 1967 war. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is still ongoing, and has involved the creation of Israeli settlements, which is a war crime under international law.
See Indymedia UK for a fuller report and more pictures.