Activists claim “JP Morgan finances genocide”
A group of activists in solidarity with Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation smeared red paint on/ smashed windows of the building where the headquarters of JPMorgan Chase bank is located in Lisbon at dawn today..
In a note sent to Lusa, the Collective for the Liberation of Palestine and Palestine Action, said they had also daubed (in Portuguese) the phrase: “JPMorgan finances genocide”.
A PSP source has confirmed that a group “broke glass and threw paint balloons at the building on Rua Barata Salgueiro at 5.19” this morning.
According to the source, the group was no longer there when the police arrived.
The activists explain in their own note that the action was a response to an international call initiated by the Palestina Libera and Ultima Generazione collectives in Italy, which also painted the offices of JPMorgan Chase in Milan, asking collectives around the world to help publicly denounce this company.
“The protest aims to denounce the complicity of the US bank JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the world, with the Zionist colonial project and the ongoing genocide in Palestine,” the statement said, adding that JPMorgan Chase “is currently financing some of the largest companies that directly support the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, including Elbit Systems, the largest Israeli arms company.“
In the note, the group recalls Israeli bombings in Gaza in recent months, emphasising that “banks like JPMorgan have never stopped financing” Israel through various arms manufacturing companies, one of which is “Elbit Systems, the largest Israeli company producing weapons and military armaments for the Israeli army.”
The activists also call for “no more consent to the genocide taking place in Palestine” and pledge to “resist companies that profit from the colonial occupation of Palestine”, demanding that “JPMorgan Chase and other companies complicit in the genocide cancel all ties with the Zionist State and Israeli companies, starting with the immediate cancellation of all ties with Elbit Systems.
“We demand a boycott, divestment and sanctions on all organisations complicit in the occupation. We demand an end to the occupation of Palestine, the total dismantling of the Zionist colonial project and self-determination for the Palestinian people,” the statement adds.
Meanwhile, in Coimbra, students at the University are into their 24th day of a protest camp, essentially demanding the same things. The “Student Camp for the End of Genocide underway in Palestine” began on May 21, and has seen President Marcelo not only talk with the protestors, but agree, the government’s stance on Palestine and what is happening “is changing”.
Source material: LUSA
