Amnesty International protests against CAF for participating in the Jerusalem light rail project

2023-06-10 18:39:25

Dozens of people, summoned by various groups and entities, among them, International Amnestyhave gathered this Saturday in front of the facilities of CAF of Lazkao (Guipúzcoa) in which the company’s shareholders’ meeting was held to protest the participation of this company in the Jerusalem light rail project.

The mobilization took place in front of the CAF Third Division pavilions located in the confluence of the Guipuzcoan municipalities of Beasain and Lazkaowhere the General Shareholders’ Meeting was held in which company managers presented the balance of the activity and the main milestones of the firm during the last financial year.

The protest has been organized by various entities grouped on the platform ‘CAF Get off the apartheid train‘ and during it the participants have waved flags of Palestine and exhibited banners and posters with slogans such as “They are not just trains, they are colonization tools. CAF do not be an accomplice.”

They have also uttered shouts, which have intensified when shareholders entered the company’s facilities, such as “Palestine, freedom” or “Assassin Israel, CAF collaborator”.

Along with these concentrates, there have also been dozens of other people, dressed in yellow t-shirts or vests and with their own protest banners, belonging to the collective of affected by the difficulties of recovering quotas of the EPSV Geroa.

For his part, an activist from Amnesty International (AI), apparently a CAF shareholder, has used his turn to speak to demand that the Board abandon the railway project.

The organization specified that the person involved was Gerardo Ríos, who asked at the meeting why the company “continues to avoid detailing in the report sustainability that the project crosses Palestinian Territories and illegal settlements in Jerusalemthus hiding risk factors”.

According to AI, “the company has continued to argue the ‘positive’ social impact of the project and, hiding behind a consultation with an expert, has reaffirmed that it is legal, although it has not made the content of its report public.”

Ríos has also criticized the fact that CAF’s “reports and policies” “ensure” that it is a company “committed to respecting human rights” when it “does not take into account the consequences” of that project for the Palestinian population.