BDS Morocco to 'besiege' Carrefour stores over Israeli settlement links

BDS Maroc, Morocco's burgeoning pro-Palestine boycott group, is set to "besiege" storefronts of a French retailer supporting Israeli settlements, despite local authorities' previous ban on such forms of protest.

“The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement calls on you, groups and individuals, to take action to pressure the LabelVie group to end its partnership with the Carrefour Group,” reads a press release by the group published Thursday.

Last year, multinational group Carrefour signed a partnership with Electra Consumer Products and its subsidiary Yenot Bitan, both operating within illegal Israeli settlements.

Israeli settlers have committed serious human rights abuses against Palestinians, and their settlements restrict Palestinian freedom of movement and access to natural resources.

Electra is listed in the UN database of firms involved in settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. 

The BDS movement has long called for an international boycott of the company over "involvement in war crimes committed by the Israeli regime, settler-colonialism and apartheid over the Palestinian people".

In Morocco, local firm LabelVie signed a franchise contract with the Carrefour Partenariat International (CPI) group in 2019, opening more than 70 stores around the kingdom.

BDS Maroc’s main demand is for LabelVie to cut ties with the France-based firm.

“Or your partner, Carrefour, has to terminate its partnership with the two Israeli companies, and stop distributing products from settlements built on looted Palestinian land,” added the BDS Maroc press release.

LabelVie and Carrefour did not comment on the campaign by the time of publication.

Under the Hashtag 'boycott is resistance', BDS Maroc detailed a list of actions for Moroccans to follow to end the company's presence in the country, or its ties with Israeli settlements. 

“Boycott. (...) Post about it. (...) Besiege the Carrefour store in your city, deliver a letter of protest to the store’s administration,” said BDS Maroc.

The group is set to organise protests on December 30-31 outside Carrefour supermarkets in Morocco, in a defiant challenge to local authorities’ “illegal repression and violence”.

In June, Police forces "brutally" dispersed BDS members and several local Pro-Palestine groups, causing minor injuries among the protesters in front of a Carrefour store in Casablanca, according to a report by Moroccan Front Against the Normalisation. 

“Knowing that what we are doing is a form of protest, and it is a right guaranteed to every citizen under the law. we will continue our struggle until we reach the desired demands of our campaign,” said BDS Maroc.