{"id":57510,"date":"2015-09-22T10:48:31","date_gmt":"2015-09-22T07:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=57510"},"modified":"2015-09-22T10:48:31","modified_gmt":"2015-09-22T07:48:31","slug":"s-africans-protest-us-singer-for-perceived-israel-ties-57510","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/s-africans-protest-us-singer-for-perceived-israel-ties-57510\/","title":{"rendered":"S. Africans protest US singer for perceived Israel ties"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-57511\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Pharrell-Williams-israel-tie.jpg\" alt=\"Pharrell Williams israel tie\" width=\"610\" height=\"386\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Pharrell-Williams-israel-tie.jpg 610w, https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Pharrell-Williams-israel-tie-280x177.jpg 280w, https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Pharrell-Williams-israel-tie-568x360.jpg 568w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 610px) 100vw, 610px\" \/>Pro-Palestine activists in Cape Town protest concert by US singer Pharrell Williams due to latter\u2019s perceived links to Israel.<\/h1>\n<p>About 1,000 South African activists gathered late Monday to protest against U.S. Grammy Award-winning singer Pharrell Williams \u2013 who was performing at a concert in Cape Town \u2013 due to the singer\u2019s perceived links to Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Organizers said they were protesting William\u2019s decision to perform at a concert sponsored by U.S. retail giant Woolworths, which is accused of having close trade links with Israel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur protest was very successful,\u201d organizer Muhammed Desai, who is also a leader of the South African chapter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, told Anadolu Agency.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe managed to send a clear message to both Woolworths and Pharrell,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>The protest, Desai said, was also aimed at drumming up international support for the Palestinian cause and ratcheting up pressure on Israel to end its decades-long occupation of Palestinian land.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have many pressing issues in South Africa, but we must also find time to show solidarity,\u201d he told Anadolu Agency by phone shortly after the protest.<\/p>\n<p>Over the course of the last year, BDS campaigners have held nationwide protests to demand that Woolworths remove Israeli goods from its shelves in line with an international economic boycott of the self-proclaimed Jewish state.<\/p>\n<p>BDS is a global movement devoted to raising economic and political pressure on Israel with the ultimate aim of ending the ongoing occupation of Palestinian land.<\/p>\n<p>In an earlier statement, BDS said Williams had also breached an international cultural boycott by scheduling a performance soon to be held in Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Muhammad Khalid Sayed, a member of the ruling African National Congress (ANC)\u2019s youth league, urged protesters to maintain their boycott, pointing out that international sanctions had helped isolate \u2013 and eventually bring down \u2013 South Africa\u2019s former apartheid regime.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe ANC youth league supports calls for the isolation of apartheid Israel,\u201d he said, going on to assert that the struggles of the South African and Palestinian peoples were interlinked.<\/p>\n<p>Other speakers at Monday\u2019s protest called on the South African government to sever diplomatic ties with Israel (Anadolu Agency).<\/p>\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: #f00;\">Error, group does not exist! 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(ID: 7)<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pro-Palestine activists in Cape Town protest concert by US singer Pharrell Williams due to latter\u2019s perceived links to Israel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,63,79],"tags":[2789,69510],"class_list":["post-57510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-magazine","tag-cape-town","tag-pharrell-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57510\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}