ACTIVISTS will today protest when the world’s biggest security group G4S holds its annual meeting in London amid pressure on it to stop providing equipment to the Israeli prisons authority. 

During its AGM last year the corporation promised action but once again G4S has broken its pledge. 

The demonstration will take place while Israeli politicians consider new legislation that would allow the force-feeding of Palestinian inmates on hunger strike.

The call for G4S to act will coincide with a similar demand in a letter from major figures including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has likened Palestinians’ treatment under Israeli occupation to his native South African apartheid.

Tutu has signed a letter appealing for G4S to end its links with Israeli jails, alongside film directors Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, musician Roger Waters, the writer Alice Walker and UN special rapporteur Richard Falk.

These pleas will come soon after Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’s charity responded to a backlash over investment in G4S by slashing its holdings to below 3 per cent, the lowest threshold at which shareholders must declare stakes.

And the protest will proceed against the backdrop of public consternation amid Education Secretary Michael Gove’s plan to let G4S run children’s services.

Over 5,000 Palestinians are currently incarcerated within Israeli prisons, including 183 children and 175 interned under “administrative orders” — a form of detention without charges or trial used to hold people for indefinite periods based on secret information.

G4S provides systems for the Ketziot and Megiddo prisons, which hold Palestinian political prisoners from occupied Palestinian territory inside Israel.

According to Article 76 of the UN Fourth Geneva Convention, governments must not transfer prisoners from occupied territory into the territory of the occupier.

G4S also provides equipment for Ofer prison, located in the occupied West Bank, and for Kishon and Moskobiyyeh detention facilities, at which human rights organisations have documented systematic torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners, including children. 

In addition, G4S signed contracts for equipment and services for the West Bank Israeli police headquarters and private businesses based in illegal Israeli settlements.

Moreover, G4S has provided security equipment and services for use at checkpoints in the occupied West Bank that form part of the route of Israel’s illegal wall and to terminals isolating besieged Gaza. 

Four years ago the Russell tribunal on Palestine in London — whose panellists included Falk’s predecessor, John Dugard — concluded that G4S may be criminally liable for its activities in support of the wall.

In 2012, on the eve of a mass hunger strike by more than 2,000 Palestinian political prisoners, War on Want partner Addameer and other Palestinian human rights organisations called for an anti-G4S campaign.

Universities, banks, charities and trade unions across the world have terminated contracts with G4S over its role in Israel’s prison system, costing the company millions of pounds.

More than two years ago, the European Union decided not to renew a major contract with G4S amid concerns raised by a group of 28 members of the European Parliament alongside civil society groups.

In August 2012 the British renewable energy firm Good Energy announced its move to end the company’s business relationship with G4S, citing a commitment to high ethical standards. In a statement published on its website, Good Energy hinted at the pressure by activists, citing “feedback from customers” among the reasons behind its decision.

Later that year a report by UN special rapporteur Falk branded G4S a prime example of a company that should be held to account for participation in Israeli violations of international law.

In January last year G4S was voted one of the world’s most notorious companies in the Public Eye awards, the annual event against profit-oriented globalisation, which counters the corporate-led World Economic Forum.

The next month Dundee University Students’ Association voted overwhelmingly to cancel their G4S contract in their annual general meeting.

In April 2013, after investment analyst Kean Marden pointed to Israel-Palestine “reputational issues” for G4S, the security company pledged to withdraw by 2015 from contracts over West Bank checkpoints and a Ramallah prison.

Last November both King’s College in London and Southampton University opted not to award G4S major contracts after vigorous student campaigns.

Two months later the student union at Kent University voted to terminate its deal with G4S following an “outcry” over its role in the human rights abuse of Palestinians.

And in a major victory in March, the BBC decided not to award G4S an £80m contract after a campaign supported by notable figures including Loach, Leigh and Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif.

The same month, G4S had to agree a payout of £109m to the British government for overcharging for its prisoner tagging operation. 

And yet despite widespread opposition, G4S has refused to sever ties with the Israeli prisons authority.

But the pressure is mounting on the company, over not only Palestine but on several other fronts. Three G4S guards face manslaughter charges for their alleged role in the death of Jimmy Mubenga, the Angolan restrained during his deportation.

The Commons public accounts committee published a scathing report exposing filthy and unfit G4S housing for people awaiting outcomes from asylum claims or appeals, ensuring the company will be fined.

The coalition government has so far ignored G4S scandals by handing them further lucrative contracts. 

Yet the focus on Palestine, Mubenga and asylum housing, on top of the £109m payout over its fleecing of the taxpayer, is winning new supporters to the campaign to stop G4S human rights abuse.

Paul Collins is media officer at War on Want.