Strabane BDS stages McDonald’s protest

MEMBERS of Strabane BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) took to the streets on Saturday to protest outside McDonalds in yet another attempt to raise awareness relating to the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

Around 15 members of the movement stood on Railway Street outside the restaurant holding banners and Palestinian flags protesting at what they see as the fast food giant’s ‘complicity’ in the war.

Spokesperson for the movement, Adam McGinley said, “We are a part of the BDS National Committee set up in 2005 by 170 Palestine civil society groups who recognised that it would take more than simply resistance from the Palestinian people to win liberation for a Palestinian state. After compiling a list of the companies who were most complicit in funding the Israeli state, it was found that McDonalds have over 220 outlets in Israel. The corporate tax drawn down by the Israeli government into the local economy is then used for bombs, bullets and the genocide of the Palestinian people.

“We’re here to call out McDonalds for that complicity despite the fact that they, under the Genocide Convention to which both the Irish and UK governments have signed up to, still provide funding to an apartheid state and are equally punishable under the convention.”

Mr McGinley says he hopes that, at a local level, it would spark debate within the local community over products in other stores which he says, ‘are complicit in war crimes and genocide’ and he is urging shoppers to think where their money is going before purchasing products.