The mayor of the Brazilian port city of Belem, Edmilson Rodrigues, has declared his city an Apartheid Free Zone, denouncing Israel's "expulsion of a people from their ancestral territory, a true apartheid", the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement announced yesterday.
Belem, the capital of the state of Para in the Amazonas, has a history of bringing indigenous and other people together in the struggle for justice and building solidarity.
Belem's decision follows those by the mayor of Barcelona, Spain, to suspend institutional ties with apartheid Israel and end twinning with Tel Aviv, by the Liège city council in Belgium to cut ties with apartheid Israel and by the Oslo city council in Norway to exclude from public procurements companies that directly or indirectly contribute to Israel's illegal settlement enterprise.
The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) applauded the mayor of Belem's move and called for other cities around the world to follow suit.
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