Petrer walks away from its commitment to BDS discrimination

The Plenary of the Petrer City Council approved yesterday by a majority the withdrawal of its adhesion to the anti-Semitic BDS movement, committed to discriminating Israeli companies and people, as well as non-Israeli organizations or persons supporting the Jewish state.

The motion of adhesion to the BDS was presented in the past by Podemos’ white label in Petrer, with the support of PSOE-PSPV, Compromís, and Esquerra Unida, and with Partido Popular and Ciudadanos voting against. Petrer is a town located in the province of Alicante, with 40.000 inhabitants.

Following ACOM’s legal actions, which exposed the illegality of this agreement, and after listening to the cry of the civil society in this locality, Mayor Alfonso Lacasa and his group have rectified. Thus, Petrer becomes again the entrepreneurial city council, open to all and that does not discriminate against anyone based on national, ethnic or religious origin, including the Jews.

Thanks to ACOM’s legal initiatives, 11 courts have annulled such motions (among these judgments, that of a High Court of Justice), 3 other institutions have voluntarily revoked the agreements, and 3 more have been suspended judicially until definitive ruling. Furthermore, the public prosecutor, through its Hate and Discrimination department, has acted ex officio, opening proceedings to determine the criminal responsibility of councillors who supported the agreement in the Valencian municipality. In addition, nine people responsible for this movement in Spain are currently subject of proceedings for the harassment and intimidation of the American Jewish artist Matisyahu, perpetrated by the same self-proclaimed BDS País Valenciá that promoted illegal initiatives such as those from Petrer or Xeraco.

A clearly anti-Semitic movement, the BDS is not only facing a firm response from our judicial system and our constitutional framework, with courts that deal blow after legal blow to its mafia-style, violent, and excluding strategy; but its Judeophobic outrages are also being curbed by a civil society and its increasingly sensitive representatives.