Meg Whitman, CEO and President
Hewlett-Packard Company
WW Corporate Headquarters
3000 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1185 USA
Dear Ms. Whitman:
We call on Hewlett-Packard to stop profiting from the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine
and the violation of Palestinians’ human rights. Specifically, we ask that Hewlett-Packard
cancel all contracts that supply the Israeli state with the means—technology, equipment,
and expertise—to violate the basic human rights of Palestinians and international law.
These contracts include:
•
HP’s contract with the Israeli Ministry of Defense to develop, execute, and maintain
the Basel system, a biometric identification system installed at checkpoints in the
West Bank. Israeli military checkpoints and barriers are located deep inside the
West Bank, and the Basel system is used to severely restrict Palestinian movement,
often between neighboring Palestinian towns; in 2011 the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs counted 522 roadblocks and checkpoints
obstructing Palestinian movement in the West Bank.
•
The manufacture of biometric ID cards for citizens and residents of Israel, including
Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. This
system takes to a new level of technology the stratification of citizenship rights,
denying Palestinians the rights to civil equality, travel, and residence in their
homeland.
•
The administration of the Israeli army’s information technology infrastructure (the
“virtual army project”), which follows a similar project for the Israeli navy. The
Israeli navy has enforced the naval blockade on the Gaza strip since 2007 and was
responsible for the raid on the freedom flotilla in 2010 that resulted in the death of
nine activists and the injury of many others.
•
The 2009 contract to supply all PCs to the Israeli military and the 2011 contract to
supply all servers to the Israeli military. HP equipment and services are routinely
used for illegal collective punishment activities such as home demolitions, arbitrary
restrictions on civilian movement, mass arrests, and administrative detention.