Pro-ceasefire demonstrators block access to Dartmouth business tied to Israeli weapons supplier
About 50 people — members of the Palestinian community in HRM and their supporters — demonstrated outside the Dartmouth office of a company they say is a subsidiary of a business that supplies weapons to Israel as they joined efforts to call for an end to the conflict in Gaza.
Paniz Khosroshahy said she and other protesters arrived at 7 a.m. at the office of GeoSpectrum Technologies on Akerley Boulevard.
“We wanted to draw attention to the fact they are operating in Dartmouth,” Khosroshahy said. “Geospectrum is a wholly owned subsidiary of Elbit, which is one of the main suppliers of weapons to the Israeli Defence Forces.”
Breaking: ppl blocking entrances to GeoSpectrum, a subsidiary of Elbit & weapons supplier to Israel.
GeoSpectrum is complicit in the genocide!
URGENT SUPPORT NEEDED: come join at 10 Akerely, Dartmouth & shut GeoSpectrum down! #FreePalestine pic.twitter.com/l2DZzFNFTQ
— Labour 4 Palestine (@PalestineLabour) November 9, 2023
She said the purpose of the protest and similar ones across the world was to call for an immediate ceasefire and end to the siege of Gaza, and halt of the arms trade with Israel.
Khosroshahy said from the standpoint of bringing attention to that call, she considers the protest, which ended at about 10:30 a.m., to be a success.
“We had a lot of folks showing up, we’ve had a lot of success from passersby,” she said. “This is what Palestinians asked for. We are not doing this in a vacuum, we are doing it in response to the call from Palestinian Civil Society and engaging in this action.”
@HfxRegPolice are on scene in relation to a demonstration in the area of the 0-100 block of Akerly Boulevard in Dartmouth this morning. We ask that the public avoid the area and take alternate routes at this time to avoid delays. https://t.co/UQ4MSsTPgY pic.twitter.com/IAMKJQNJAh
— Halifax_Police (@HfxRegPolice) November 9, 2023
Halifax Regional Police were on the scene to direct traffic, maintain safety in the area. Const. John MacLeod said the protesters weren’t blocking the street, but traffic was slowed by people looking to see what was going on or trying to get into the parking lot of the building that houses GeoSpectrum and several other businesses.
Among the similar actions Thursday were protests in Toronto at Union Station and a Colt Manufacturing plant in Connecticut. Demonstrators also shut down the Elbit office in Boston on Monday.
