The South African BDS Coalition is appalled at the UK government imposing last minute visa restrictions on Mandla Mandela, grandson of Nelson Mandela, due to embark on a Palestinian solidarity tour of Britain against the Israeli genocide.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government has yet again caved in to pressure from the pro-Israel lobby and the British mainstream media smear campaign against Mandla Mandela, former ANC MP and stalwart Palestine solidarity activist. This shows their utter contempt for freedom of expression, human rights or any pretense of international solidarity by the ruling Labour Party.
In the House of Commons yesterday Starmer refused to state the UK will stop selling weapons to genocidal Israel. Despite millions of ordinary people across Britain demonstrating for a ceasefire and an end to the illegal occupation, the UK government remains complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, by his actions, is no better than one of apartheid South Africa’s key supporters, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. As South Africans, we stand steadfast in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s liberation struggle against apartheid, occupation, settler colonialism and genocide.
We will never forget the ordinary British people in the Anti-Apartheid Movement who played such a critical role in forcing the international community to ultimately implement sanctions against apartheid South Africa, isolating the regime in support of our liberation struggle.
We remind Keir Starmer and the UK government of the prescient words of Nelson Mandela, once himself called a terrorist by the United Kingdom government, that our freedom remains incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinian people.
From South Africa, the UK and across the world we, the people, are now demanding that governments heed their international legal obligations and the Palestinian call to boycott, divest and implement sanctions against genocidal apartheid Israel.
