Police charge protestors over ‘Israeli apartheid’ banner

The police are charging members of the Network for Palestinian Solidarity for refusing to remove a banner that read 'Stop Israeli Apartheid' during a national women's football qualifier between Malta and Israel.

According to the statements filed by police officers, Chris Mizzi, Luke Buhagiar, and Frederick Abdilla, refused to obey police orders to put the banner down during a peaceful protest at the Centenary Stadium, in Ta’ Qali.

The protest was organised by the Network for Palestinian Solidarity, and involved the display of a banner that read ‘Stop Israeli Apartheid’, in a statement aimed at the Israeli government’s occupation of Palestinians in Gaza.

The charges are being interpreted as a way of quashing the NGO's freedom of expression: the police are charging them of breaching the public peace, ground regulations, disobeying police orders, and being a nuisance.

The protestors say they cooperated with the police officers when they insisted on having the banner removed. The police had also confiscated photos of the event taken by an Italian photographer, who was then escorted by police to his Swieqi residence to provide them with proof of his identity and residence.

The football match, a World Cup Tournament qualifier, was free and open to the public.

"The Palestine Solidarity Network felt compelled to hold such action as it believes that the current situation of systematic terror, segregation and ethnic cleansing being pursued by the Israeli state merits global denunciation," the NGO had said in a statement.

"The word ‘Apartheid’, originally used in relation to the racist political, economic and military policies put in place by the South African White Regime is being increasingly employed to describe the situation in Palestine. Like black people in South Africa, Palestinians are denied their fundamental human rights through discriminatory practices in the regulation of access to resources, freedom of movement and ownership of land."

The NGO said that sport was one of those areas exposing the condition of systematic oppression under which Israel was keeping the Palestinians.

"While Israelis can travel freely around the world to play international games, Palestinian players are required to obtain special permits from the Israeli authorities, often making their movements complicated, if not impossible. There have also been many cases of Palestinian football players that were subjected to violence and/or arbitrary imprisonment. For example, in January 2014 two Palestinian footballers, Jawhar Nasser Jawhar, 19, and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, 17, were shot by Israeli soldiers and mauled by checkpoint dogs on their way back from a training session, an attack which forever ended their football careers."