We ask Leeds City Council to oppose apartheid, and not to invite back to exhibit in Late Night Leeds 2023 the Israeli OGE group, which exhibited in October 2022 (https://www.leedsinspired.co.uk/events/house-cards and also in 2019.

Apartheid is a specific type of racism, and a crime under international law. Israel is an apartheid state, in the considered legal opinion of the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Harvard Law School B’Tselem (Israel’s largest human rights organisation), Yesh Din (leading Israeli legal rights organisation), Michael Benyair (Former Israeli Attorney General), Yehudit Karp (Former Israeli Deputy Attorney General), and many other qualified organisations and individuals. See: https://www.cjpme.org/apartheid_list

We are shocked that Leeds Councillors have thought this to be acceptable. To have seen the words ‘Leeds City Council’ next to ‘Israel’ on the installation plaque was upsetting and demoralising to many Palestinian students at the university, and unacceptable to Leeds and West Yorkshire’s vibrant community.

Are the city’s councillors proud to celebrate this cooperation?

The involvement of OGE Group normalises co-operation and collaboration with a state whose military laid siege to the Palestinian city of Nablus and the East Jerusalem refugee camp of Shuafa (home to 100,000 people) this last fortnight, murdered journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in May, has imprisoned Ahmed Manasra since the age of 13 (he is now 21), subjecting him to abusive interrogation techniques and depriving him of contact with his family (DISCRETION ADVISED: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1241323785884534 These are just current examples of Israel’s history of degradation and systematic abuse of the Palestinians.

The inclusion of these artists as representatives of this country suggest that the city of Leeds is in support of gross violations of human rights. The artistic collaboration endorses apartheid. It condones human suffering and the impunity of those who flagrantly perpetuate it.

Some people may claim that art is detached from politics and world issues – for countless students at Leeds University, art is where our innermost human values need to be reflected. OGE Group’s involvement in Leeds Light Night and the injustice of this are not a matter only of politics, but of human rights.

Leeds as a city has a proud record of opposing racism. We ask the City Council to do the right thing in this case, and say ‘no’ to apartheid.