Austin Activists Protest Material Support of Genocide in Palestine: Ahava cosmetics produced In illegal Israeli settlements.

More
than 30 people carried picket signs in front of the Gateway Shopping
Center in Austin on Saturday, April 24, urging shoppers to boycott ULTA
Beauty for refusing to take Ahava Dead Sea cosmetics off their shelves.

The
Austin protests, which began the previous week at the Sunset Valley
ULTA store, are part of an international campaign to call attention to
resources taken from illegal Israeli settlements. The UN has declared
the Israeli settlements in Palestine to be a violation of international
law and Ahava violates the fourth Geneva Convention by exploiting
Palestine’s natural resources.

Bernice Hecker, a member of the Interfaith Community for Palestinian Rights, said:
"We’ve
joined this international campaign to call attention to the illegal
Israeli settlements and the theft of Palestinian resources. By telling
shoppers to boycott ULTA, we are calling attention both to the
occupation and to the fact that Ahava is marked as “made in Israel”
when it is really made in occupied Palestine."
The boycott efforts
have been organized by the Interfaith Community for Palestinian Rights,
CodePink, and the UT Palestinian Solidarity Committee. Members of the
groups have approached the managers of four ULTA stores and asked them
to remove Ahava products but they refused.

On April 17 the
groups held an in-store action at Sunset Valley ULTA followed by a
picket on the sidewalk of the shopping center. On April 24 there was a
brief in-store action at the Gateway Ulta with a picket line on the
sidewalk. These actions were in response to ULTA's refusal to remove
these illegal products from their stores.

More on the boycott campaign can be found at www.StolenBeauty.org

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